To pause new construction—even if momentarily, creates a radical thinking framework for alternatives to the current regime of space production and its suspect growth imperative. Engaging with unsettling questions, A Moratorium on New Construction envisions a massive value shift for our existing stock. From housing redistribution to reinviting value generation, from anti-extractive measures to profound structural changes, from curricula reforms to purging the exploitative culture of the office, an entire rewiring of design processes and construction lays ahead. Somewhere between a thought experiment and a call for action, A Moratorium on New Construction is a leap of faith to envision a less extractive future, made of what we have: Not demolishing, not building new, but building less, building with what exists, inhabiting it differently, and caring for it.

Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is an architect, urban designer, and assistant professor of Architectural and Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (ENAC – EPFL).

Join us!


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A Moratorium on New Construction

Public Pleasures was a research and design project exploring expanded forms of care through accessible spaces for dance and collective celebration. By centering aging and non-normative bodies, it positions architectural design as an agent of desire and a key force within care infrastructures, framing pleasure as both a right and a form of healing.
The project was developed for the World Congress of Architects (UIA) in Barcelona. The research focused on the city of Barcelona and its techno dance spaces—a musical genre that has played a significant role in shaping the post-industrial European city—addressing how techno venues often reproduce exclusionary dynamics the project proposed making techno dancing accessible to all.

A large-scale prototype of a techno dancefloor reimagined pleasure as a political, spatial, and bodily practice tied to accessibility. A series of mechanisms suspended from the ceiling provided the required conditions to make the dancing experience available to diversity of bodies. Accessibility was understood not only as a physical challenge but also as a representational issue that fosters recognition and equity. The project was developed in dialogue with a series of experts and users.

The images are from the closing party, co-organized with the collective @discopacitades and with DJs amoramor + @sofysuars.
Pictures by @joseporroche.

Project main authors: @care.xyz. + @maioarchitects + @polestevecastello

Research: Care. (Anna Puigjaner, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Pol Esteve Castelló, Laura Bravo, Pau Gelpí Roig) 

Design: MAIO (Maria Charneco, Alfredo Lérida, Guillermo López and Anna Puigjaner)  and Pol Esteve Castelló 

Collaborators: Laura Bravo, Pau Gelpí Roig, Abdulrahman Alqasem, Júlia Torres Navarro, Silvia Fernández Puigdevall.

Research conversations: Ángel Molina, Discopacitades (Luca Roma, Marta Bustos, Nina Roma, Sara Bisbe), Javier Marcuello, Joan Mas Soler, Meritxell de Soto, Sonia Fernández Pan.

Oral stories: Àngels Hidalgo, Carlos Romagosa, Eugènia Sentís, Isabel Caballero, Júlia Martinez, Paloma Unzeta, Rosana Garrido, Rosa Puigcercós.

Metal structure: Tallers Soteras

With the support of Stavros Niarchos Foundation 


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Public Pleasures: technoparty for all

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Care Catwalk

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Pleasure

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What if Dirt came back?

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Care work beyond retirement

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