Title of the thesis: What Fragility Does to Architecture: Maintenance and Care of Hospital Technical Services.
Supervision: Jérôme Denis.
This thesis project examines what fragility does to architecture by studying maintenance and care provided by technical services in hospital buildings.
In a context marked by climate instability, aging buildings, and dwindling resources, the issues of durability and maintenance have become paramount. However, the focus of architecture remains largely on new design, while maintenance, which is often invisible, continues to be undervalued.
The hospital is a prime field of investigation for this project. In the 19th century, as hospitals transitioned from the religious model of a hotel designed for accommodating the sick to a modern hospital model where treatment and cure were aimed for, the first mechanical services were introduced. From then on, hospitals ceased to be static buildings and became living organisms that also required care. Their fragility was no longer considered a flaw but an integral part of their architectural design, making hospital maintenance a vital and institutionalized activity.
This research aims to approach fragility not as a weakness, but as a condition to be documented, supported, and negotiated.
The project is being carried out as part of a CIFRE partnership between the Center for the Sociology of Innovation (Mines Paris – PSL) and the architecture agency SCAU, whose hospital catalog will be the main research field of the thesis.