Paolo Tombesi

Trained as an architect in Italy, Paolo Tombesi holds the Chair in Construction and Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), where he directs the Institute of Architecture in the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), and the research laboratory FAR as part of the Fribourg-based ‘Smart Living Lab’. Prior to his appointment, in 2016, he was the Chair in Construction at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where he retains the Professorship of Building. Professor Tombesi has also held visiting positions at the University of Reading, UK, the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Santiago, Chile, and the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy.The overarching concern of Professor Tombesi’s work is the relationship between the intellectual dimension of architecture and the socio-technical aspects of its physical construction. A former Fulbright Fellow, he has a PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles on the distribution of technical design knowledge in the building industry, developed by examining the construction of Frank Gehry’s buildings.