Led by the acclaimed French designer Erwan Bouroullec, the workshop 'Presque Rien' unfolded as an exploration of design possibilities within the setting of his estate and recently renovated Burgundy farm. The project envisioned an open canvas, encouraging ECAL’s Bachelor Industrial Design students, to diverge from traditional problem-solving.
Workshop (2023) with Erwan Bouroullec
The workshop leveraged the site’s potential and its unique attributes — an isolated landscape with space, nature interactions, and a public dimension. Here, agile, effective, and relevant methods took precedence over industry norms, embodying a performative lightness and focusing on minimalism.
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The essence was to provide creative freedom, encouraging the students to draw inspiration from the ordinary yet multifaceted environment and to diverge from traditional process. Insisting on the discovery of novel methods while allowing the use of on-site materials or energies, interventions were required to leave no trace, demanding a light and respectful approach.
Emphasizing the bond with the location and its essence, the students engaged in extensive walks in the forest, bonfires, and discussions with local craftsmen, foresters, farmers and manufacturer.
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The workshop's outcomes ranged from tangible constructions to ephemeral interventions, drawing inspiration from resources at hand like water, wind, wood, and discarded items. The final showcase takes the form of process videos, which not only capture the workshop's diverse typologies of creations but also influence a broader protocol of socialization, advocating for harmonious living through purposeful design.
Event
BA INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
with Philippe Malouin
In collaboration with the renowned cutlery brand, students from the Bachelor in Industrial Design drew inspiration from the iconic Swiss Army Knife to create original and innovative concepts.
BA INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
by Damien Barman
Modular Parking Terrace. Designed for restaurants that temporarily occupy parking spaces during the summer, this modular terrace offers a standardized alternative to custom-built installations. It is a reusable solution that can be adapted to different locations and expanded when needed. The terrace is composed of half-parking-space modules that connect together to fit a variable number of parking spaces. It features a fabric roof that unfolds accordion-style along rails using a rope system, allowing it to be opened or closed from the end of the terrace without disturbing users. Fully demountable for easy winter storage, the structure is made of galvanized steel, while the flooring is constructed from maritime pine panels.
BA INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
by Laura Cipriano
Roll3 is a universally adjustable pair of 3D glasses that explores a new way of inhabiting vision. Flexible, rollable, and made from a single material, it adapts to different face shapes as well as to the wearing of prescription glasses. It replaces traditional temples with a support system based on gentle pressure at the temples, allowing for quick and intuitive placement, either directly on the face or over other glasses. Made from PET, it simplifies manufacturing and facilitates recycling at the end of its life cycle. In a context where around 640,000 pairs of 3D glasses were used in Switzerland in 2025 and 81% of the population wears some form of visual aid, Roll3 questions the sustainability of these ephemeral objects and their potential for transformation.
BA INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
by Benjamin Claus
UKS (Urban Keep Safe) is an urban storage system designed for municipalities and event organisers. Conceived for temporary deployments, festivals, marathons or seasonal installations, it offers a simple infrastructure for users to secure their personal belongings. The flexible bags rely on a stainless steel mesh combined with water-resistant fabric to offer a lighter and more compact solution to traditional lockers, while remaining weather-resistant and theft-deterrent. UKS fits on a standard pallet when disassembled, ready to be stored away and redeployed the following next big event.
BA INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
by Mélissa Da Silva Nicolet
There is someone who lives alone and wants to be a bird. We don't know why they stopped going out. We don't know why they decided to become a bird. It happened gradually. The apartment transforms in silence, in a quiet and luminous strangeness. From this script, three objects were designed, each tied to a scene from this character's daily life: a perch, a bathing object, and a sleep wrap. Each one answers a human need, translated through the logic of a bird's life. The project takes the form of a set built around these objects, an atmosphere, a fragment of the life of someone who chose, in their own way, to live differently.