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PCA-STREAM

The PCA-STREAM agency brings together 90 architects, urban planners, designers or engineers, capable of responding to the complex challenges of the contemporary world. PCA is the architecture and urban planning agency, STREAM, a unique transdisciplinary research programme to which more than 150 researchers from all over the world contribute, and whose work is widely disseminated and applied in PCA's large-scale projects.

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The potential of the night

PCA-STREAM

Article

The potential of the night

Once a sanctuary for dreams and imagination, nighttime has now been relegated to the mere role of a utilitarian prelude to daytime. Nocturnal realms possess an alchemical power capable of transfiguring our perceptions. However, when viewed through the lens of urban uses, the night also exacerbates inequalities and raises questions about the possibility of achieving an urban night that is accessible to everyone. Exploring the range of possibilities associated with the night reveals it as a space-time where complex interactions are woven that could be revitalized through a chronotopic and inclusive architecture.

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Article

Rethinking the Campus: Balancing Tradition and Innovation

PCA-STREAM

Article

Rethinking the Campus: Balancing Tradition and Innovation

At its core, the campus embodies an enduring quest for an ideal. Its form is fraught with tensions inherited from a long history that remain relevant even as it adapts to contemporary challenges. Driven by a race to maximize their appeal, campuses are transforming into architectural showcases, competing with corporate headquarters in embodying new values and attracting top talent. Their structures and functions are evolving to meet the shifting needs of education and society. By embracing the archetypes of the agora and the garden—the original dichotomy of campuses—these bastions of knowledge are forming the contours of a new era in higher education.

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From lectures to learner-centered experiences, the metamorphosis of educational facilities

PCA-STREAM

Article

From lectures to learner-centered experiences, the metamorphosis of educational facilities

Driven by a race for attractiveness, campuses are becoming architectural showcases, competing with corporate headquarters to embody new values and attract curious minds. The form and function of campuses are evolving to meet the changing needs of education, where tradition meets innovation in a drive for excellence and inclusivity. We are entering a new era of higher education!

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Exploring methodologies to understand the living city

PCA-STREAM

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Exploring methodologies to understand the living city

Theoretical experiments around the concept of the “metabolic-city” place living organisms at the heart of a new paradigm, encouraging a systemic approach. In urban and architectural practice, what tools are available to measure metabolism? Pauline Detavernier, Doctor in Architecture and Research and Development Project Manager at PCA-STREAM, examines existing measures of the life cycle and urban metabolism to outline a methodology.

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Vidéo

Applying a research approach in an architectural practice

PCA-STREAM

Vidéo

Applying a research approach in an architectural practice

Etienne Riot, urban planning researcher, and Pauline Detavernier, architecture researcher, are at the heart of applied research and innovation at PCA-STREAM. Together, they talk about the different facets of this research, from a CIFRE contract, to the setting up of a university chair project, to the subjects explored by the collaborators.

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Defining the "Metabolic City"

PCA-STREAM

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Defining the "Metabolic City"

Léone-Alix Mazaud, a CIFRE doctoral student (PCA-STREAM / École des Mines), here repositioned our definition of the “metabolic city” within a history of approaches to urban “metabolism”; a long-standing metaphor used in the study of urban systems, yet one that has been reconfigured over time.

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Article

The challenges of contemporary justice architecture

PCA-STREAM

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The challenges of contemporary justice architecture

Courthouses constitute a complex program, part of an architectural, symbolic and political history that has yet to be fully explored[1]. A historical perspective, combined with an analysis of its contemporary issues, can nevertheless help us understand and question the tensions inherent to its architectural form.

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Article

Prospectives and Retrospectives of Office Developments

PCA-STREAM

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Prospectives and Retrospectives of Office Developments

“The office is dead, long live the office!” Whether this is a fad or actual societal transformation, articles and reports are on the rise and continue to predict a disruption in office real estate. A review of 30 years of prospective and retrospective thinking questioning office real estate programs can provide us with the key to a better understanding of this phenomenon.

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Article

Is plastic getting a facelift?

PCA-STREAM

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Is plastic getting a facelift?

The star of the stage of the recently concluded Design Week in Paris, plastic seems to have moved beyond the disdain it had been experiencing lately. Thanks to recycling, its environmental footprint is now better controlled, which has turned into a real selling point. But beyond the material itself, it is an entire production logic that should be “recycled” to extricate ourselves from the dogma of newness and disposability.

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Article

At the roots of “Urban Metabolism”

PCA-STREAM

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At the roots of “Urban Metabolism”

The use of the living organism metaphor in the field of urban system studies dates far back and is continuously reconfigured as events play out. Here, Léone-Alix Mazaud, a CIFRE PhD student (PCA-STREAM/École des Mines de Paris), repositions the meaning of the “urban metabolism” as defined by our firm within the history of approaches on the subject matter in order to highlight its unique features.

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Article

Does the company cafeteria still have a future?

PCA-STREAM

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Does the company cafeteria still have a future?

From virtual canteens to connected fridges, a whole range of innovations is gradually being introduced in office buildings. They are part of a fundamental movement that is shaking up our lunchtime practices. It’s no longer just a question of space, but now also of experience. As is often the case, these innovations are provoking change as much as they are responding to our changing needs. Will the company restaurant be able to respond?

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Article

How to reconcile plantations and constructions in cities

PCA-STREAM

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How to reconcile plantations and constructions in cities

Space, earth, water, and time. These are the key ingredients for an intelligent conditioning of plants in our cities. They are also what is sorely lacking in our cities. What good habits should be followed to reconcile plantations and urban constructions and what knowledge must we develop?

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The challenges of timber construction in addressing the climate emergency

PCA-STREAM

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The challenges of timber construction in addressing the climate emergency

The construction sector accounts for one third of France’s CO₂ emissions. This environmental footprint can be reduced by using wood, but wood only stores carbon temporarily. The challenge of sustainable construction therefore lies in a comprehensive approach that includes forest management and the durability of buildings. No ‘woodwashing’ here, but some thoughts on mixed construction!

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Care & repair for the urban future

PCA-STREAM

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Care & repair for the urban future

In the current climate of instability, new ways of thinking and acting are being considered. Among them are two attitudes of care for the living and the non-living. The planning of cities and territories is the privileged field of application of these concepts, symbols of a profound reconfiguration of our relationship to the world.

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Article

Designing a façade like a membrane

PCA-STREAM

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Designing a façade like a membrane

How can a building’s energy balance be maintained as a living organism would? The search for solutions has come to the forefront of contemporary concerns, with a view to finding a way for architecture to self-regulate its energy consumption based on uses and the fluctuations of the environment. One of the first surfaces concerned is the building’s façade, which is very similar to the material envelope of a body or the membrane of a cell: an interface between an interior that must be kept in balance and an exterior that is subject to variations the interior must be protected from. Much is at stake in the case of high-rise buildings. The double-tower high-rise “The Link,” which will emerge in La Défense in 2025, is typically subject to various constraints and challenges. To optimize user comfort, an ideal balance must be found between two paradoxical factors: the importance of daylighting and protection against exterior heat.

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Related Contents

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Training Citizen Architects to Serve a Community

Andrew Freear

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Training Citizen Architects to Serve a Community

Designing an inclusive city implies involving their residents in urban projects, but what is the role of architects and urban planners in this process? For Andrew Freear, the head of the Rural Studio program, they both have the ethical responsibility of getting locally involved via concrete projects. Architectural schools must thus take on training citizen architects by engaging them in learning by doing, and thus have them redevelop a deep connection with context and places, acting as neighbors and activists within communities in order to collectively carry out experimental projects that tangibly improve society and the environment.

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Vidéo

Collaborating with situations

Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige

Vidéo

Collaborating with situations

The two Lebanese artists and filmmakers were awarded the 2017 Marcel Duchamp Award for Unconformities, a project currently on display at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. This artwork, like their approach, is based on a methodology of investigation and excavation and aims to offer another reading of history and the traces of the past.

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Design: Reparation

Nicolas Nova

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Design: Reparation

Nicolas Nova is a social anthropologist. Inspired by New Media Studies and design fiction, he contends that the future of design lies in recycling and reparation as well as reinventing forms and functions. Did you know that a used flip-flop could serve as a lighter?

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From "Mediance" to Places

Augustin Berque

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From "Mediance" to Places

The geographer and orientalist Augustin Berque revisits the polysemic dimension of the term “milieu,” and explains the distinction made by mesology—“the area of biology that deals with the relationships between the environments and organisms”—between “environment” and “milieu.” The reality of things differs depending on the environment of each species or culture, the object doesn’t exist in itself but according to its relationship with the subject. In this way, mesology goes much further than the subject/object dualism of modern science. Ontologically “trajective,” the environment is neither objective nor subjective, but firmly between the two theoretical subject/object centers. Berque takes the term “mediance,” meaning the dynamic coupling of the individual and their surroundings, from the Japanese “fūdo,” to which he adds “trajection,” a process that results in the “mediance” of human existence in its concrete surroundings. Taken as a whole, all human environments, distinct from the biosphere through their eco-techno-symbolic dimension, form the ecumene. For architecture, this implies a respect for history and the environment, without mimicking ancient forms, creating from the “mediance” of each place.

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Vidéo

An Attempt to Drain Places

Larissa Fassler

Vidéo

An Attempt to Drain Places

Larissa Fassler is a “Neo-Situationist” artist. By exploring places over the course of many hours, she gleans their ephemeral essence, which she then superimposes on the fixed urban master plan. The subjective maps thus generated highlight both urban narratives and history.

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Maximizing reuse, minimizing transformation

Armand Bernoud

Vidéo

Maximizing reuse, minimizing transformation

Maximum is a design studio that maximizes the value of waste; its material, its form and its engineering. Some materials are transformed in a semi-industrial process while others give birth to unique pieces, such as the glass walls of the Centre Pompidou caterpillar.

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Explore More

Eager to share more generously the results of its collaborations and research, PCA-STREAM publishes STREAM VOICES, its online magazine!

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