Victor Fraigneau

The architect Victor Fraigneau obtained his PhD in 2020 with a thesis focusing on architecture in an olfactory sense (L'architecture au sens olfactif. Penser les sensibilités, les milieux, les communs, depuis les agentivités olfactives). He subsequently took up a post-doctoral position to work on the USIAS project "Beyond city and nature: architecture, city and nature in the Anthropocene" in Strasbourg. He teaches at the National School of Architecture Paris la Villette (ENSAPLV), within the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Strasbourg, and at the École Polytechnique in Paris.

He was an awarded sponsorship for research in architecture and landscape as part of a programme launched by the Caisse des Dépôts in 2017. Victor Fraigneau also received a grant for research from the JSPS Summer Program for which he was invited to theKuma Laboratory within the the University of Tokyo’s Department of Architecture, and was resident of the Cité Internationale des Arts of Paris in 2019, with support from a programme of the French Academy of Architecture.

During his PhD at the Gerphau laboratory (at ENSAPLV), he focused on exploring what the olfactory dimension can contribute to the experience and intelligent design of architecture and landscape. In particular, his research aimed to grasp the contemporaneity of the olfactory sense in the built environment, its potential in the expression of the materiality and atmospheres of architecture, and its importance in environmental and political issues at a territorial scale.