The spaces of the Sacred (3rd edition).
The spaces of the Sacred offers a space for reflection and debate for anyone who understands sacred spaces as laboratories for architectural, urban and landscape research. This definition includes places of worship, funerary and memorial spaces, as well as the urban spaces and landscapes that surround them. Defining sacred spaces as a laboratory means considering both their design and their potential transformation.

The spaces of the Sacred offers a space for reflection and debate for anyone who understands sacred spaces as laboratories for architectural, urban, and landscape research. This definition includes places of worship, funerary and memorial spaces, as well as the urban spaces and landscapes that surround them. Defining sacred spaces as a laboratory means considering both their design and their potential transformation.

The ambition is to study contexts as well as project experiences, theories as well as practices, legacies, and mutations as well as orientations and prospects. In a few words, to build knowledge and culture, to learn, experiment, and develop operational tools to understand the present and enrich contemporary practices. As a complement to the historical and social studies developed around these issues, this study day places the architectural, urban, and landscape project at the heart of its concerns.

For this third edition, the day will focus on the theme of funerary spaces. We will be looking at the shape these spaces will take in the future. Several lines of thought are envisaged:
- What place do funerary spaces have in the city? Are these places dedicated to the dead destined to remain at a distance from the living? Can they be integrated into everyday life?
- Can the boundaries of the cemetery be rethought, if not completely transformed, so that the traditional perimeter wall becomes a space of permeability with the town and the landscape?
- Is it possible to envisage funerary spaces incorporating a mix of uses and opening up to other functions?
- Is the limitation of urban expansion, imposed by the ecological and climate crisis, not an invitation to rethink the density of cemeteries and design them vertically?
- Beyond questions of density, how should environmental issues lead us to rethink funeral architecture?
- Between the monumentality of the Pharaonic tombs on the Giza plateau and the horizontal spaces concealed behind their surrounding walls, how should we view the form and aesthetics of these places?
- If there are a good number of sites and places that have been converted into funerary spaces, shouldn't we be looking at the conversion of funerary spaces?

The spaces of the Sacred provides an opportunity to share ongoing or completed research projects and to bring together researchers working on these issues. The event is open to students, doctoral candidates, teachers, researchers, practitioners, and anyone interested in developing interdisciplinary exchanges across institutions and borders. Les Espaces du Sacré is a study day organised in partnership between the "Architectural Solutions for the Design and Reuse of Sacred Spaces" (SACRES) chair, the "Heritage, Theory and Creation" (HTC) master's program, the Ecole nationale supérieure d'architecture de Lyon (ENSAL), the EVS-LAURe research laboratory and the Sainte-Marie de la Tourette convent (Eveux).

Submission procedures
The conference will be in French, but proposals may also be submitted in English. Results of the selection process will be announced by email in December 2023. Researchers wishing to contribute to this day can send their proposal, including a title, an abstract (approximately 200 words), and a short biography, to sacreslyon.archi.fr before 11 December 2023. The study day will be organise at the Sainte-Marie de la Tourette convent (Eveux) on Friday 12 January 2024.

Scientific direction
• Benjamin Chavardès, Arch. Dr., titulaire de la chaire SACRES, EVS-LAURe, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
• Bastien Couturier, Arch. Dr., chaire SACRES, EVS-LAURe, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon

Scientific Committee
• Benjamin Chavardès, Arch. Dr., titulaire de la chaire SACRES, EVS-LAURe, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
• Julien Correia, Arch. Dr., chaire SACRES, EVS-LAURe, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
• Bastien Couturier, Arch. Dr., chaire SACRES, EVS-LAURe, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
• Charles Desjobert, architecte du patrimoine, frère dominicain, couvent Sainte-Marie de la Tourette
• Philippe Dufieux, Pr. HDR, chaire SACRES, EVS-LAURe, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
• Ricardo Gomez Val, Arch. Dr., Universitat Internacional de Catalunya
• William Hayet, Arch., chaire SACRES, EVS-LAURe, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Montpellier
• Kevin Jacquot, Dr., MAP-Aria, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon
• Aïcha Sariane, Architecte DE, chaire SACRES, Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon