Estefania Mompean Botias is an architect, urban designer, and researcher pursuing her Ph.D. at the ALICE laboratory at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (2021-2025). Her research explores Emergency conditions, their ambivalences, new regulatory connotations, and how they are integrated into architecture and urban studies practices.

 

As a visiting scholar at the Urban Space Lab, she researches New York's State of Emergency, focusing on flooding around the Gowanus Canal and the technical and social impacts of the area's rezoning. Her work hypothesizes that an Emergency is a highly designed process driven by spatial interventions and environmental urgency. She investigates the spatialities generated by Emergency processes and debates their operability as a totalizing force. She conceptualizes the Architectures of Emergency, examining how they reconfigure through emotional and symbolic relationships within the territory, envisioning a more-than-human collective fabrication. Her research draws on feminist philosophical texts with temporal narratives, reflecting on the Event and Thick Time that link the present, future, and past.

 

Estefania studied at Escuela Politécnica Superior de Alicante (Master of Architecture and Urbanism) and TU Delft University (MSc Architecture, Urbanism, and Building Sciences). She has worked in Paris and New York, developing conceptual visions for the Sensual City Studio. She has contributed to exhibitions and publications, including “Mindwalks: 8 graphic narratives through Shanghai” (2016) and “A History of Thresholds: Life, Death, and Rebirth” (2018).