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Exploring the possibilities of a feminist architecture

Iris Handschin

Vidéo

Exploring the possibilities of a feminist architecture

Iris Handschin is an architect. In her final year thesis, DMC: Démocratie, matriarcale, citoyenne (DMC : Democracy, Matriarchy, Citizenship), she explores the relationship between sisterhood and architecture. How can we create a shared space of freedom and undo the hierarchical relationships at play in both private and public spaces? Exploring the possibilities of a feminist architecture inspired by the beguinages, Iris Handschin focuses on the rehabilitation of a former textile factory dating from the 1740s, outlining the contours of a truly democratic space.

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The art of artificial life

Justine Emard

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The art of artificial life

Justine Emard is a visual artist. Her installations use AI to understand the living, exploring the boundaries between organic life and artificial intelligence. Bee swarms, encephalographic recordings and prehistoric paintings become learning supports for algorithms that, contrary to dystopian imaginations, generate new supra-hyper-organisms.

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“ What will Paris be like under 50°C? How can we postpone this scenario and be better prepared for it? ”

Paris at 50°C

Alexandre Florentin

“ What will Paris be like under 50°C? How can we postpone this scenario and be better prepared for it? ”

Paris at 50°C

Our dense, mineral-rich capital is ill-suited to the extreme heat we’ll increasingly have to cope with. So what adaptation strategies can we implement? This is what we asked to Alexandre Florentin, Paris councillor responsible for resilience and climate issues. He chaired the “Paris at 50 degrees” mission, which delivered its report a few months ago: what fields of action for architects and urban designers?

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Aesthetic of Structures

Antoine Laugier, Thanh-Phong Lê

Vidéo

Aesthetic of Structures

Aesthetic of Structures is a collective work published by the Architects-Engineers & Engineers-Architects association (AAIIA). Established agencies, young practitioners, researchers and students discuss a new relationship with structures, moving away from the Vitruvian principles of utility, solidity and beauty, towards an economy of materials, reversibility of use and the reuse of materials. Here we meet two of the book’s designers: architect-engineer Antoine Laugier and graphic designer Thanh-Phong Lê, who give us an insight into the book, as an object and as a structure.

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“ What can we change in the way we inhabit the land to preserve the soil as an environment? ”

Soil as an environment, property as an inhabiting capacity

Elissa Al Saad

“ What can we change in the way we inhabit the land to preserve the soil as an environment? ”

Soil as an environment, property as an inhabiting capacity

Elissa Al Saad is an architect and laureate of the 2023 Palladio Fellowships for her thesis on soil as an environment. By comparing different possible forms of land appropriation, she raises the issue of preserving land resources in relation to ownership. The aim is to think of property as a support for a way of inhabiting that considers land as a common good.

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Living Beings

LVAO

Living Beings

La Vie à l’œuvre (Life in the Making), a collective of researchers in the natural sciences, humanities and social sciences, as well as artists, was set up at the Université Paris Sciences & Lettres in 2014 to explore interdisciplinary collective intelligence around the theme of the living. Functioning as an incubator of ideas, they explore the potential of living beings, particularly via experiments between art and science. A Stream 05 – New Intelligences article to discover!

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Rethinking Urban Spaces through Gender Mainstreaming

Leslie Kern

Leslie Kern

Rethinking Urban Spaces through Gender Mainstreaming

The city of the future will be more sustainable, leveraging technology and nature, but it must also be more inclusive, which entails conducting efforts to engage in reflexivity regarding the making of the city. For feminist geographer Leslie Kern, the urban environment is not neutral. It was set up to support standards and power relations and was long operated by white men from the upper classes. She invites us to examine a broader spectrum of needs of city dwellers and to reintroduce embodied reality into urban design. This results in tangible spatial interventions, for instance, on lighting and walkways, but also on social issues, around mixed use and taking into account marginalized voices in the decision-making processes.

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Humanless Art

Thomas Schlesser

Humanless Art

Though contemporary philosophy, faced with global issues, strives to rethink and decenter man’s place in the world—which has been dominant in modern thinking—art historian Thomas Schlesser brings nuance to the common idea of a strictly anthropocentric relationship between man and the world, visible in artistic creation since the Renaissance. Identifying major moments of rupture at the root of anthropocritical visions in the history of art, he sees within them an expression of a form of leveling out of the importance of mankind on the scale of the living. Human fragility thus constitutes both an artistic motif and cause, particularly within popular culture. By analyzing a “cosmic dilution” of the human figure at the heart of historical avant-gardes and of abstractions, through to the performance and Land Art movements, Schlesser reveals an art racked by the disappearance of the human. Without claiming that art has mainly become a “universe without man,” he opens us up to the idea that the most interesting artists are those who intuitively propose “alter-egocentric” visions of the world.

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“ Sewers are the mirror image of what happens on the surface. ”

What sewers say about us

Catherine Carré, Thomas Thiebault

“ Sewers are the mirror image of what happens on the surface. ”

What sewers say about us

Did you know that we have a lot to learn from sewers? Sewers contain numerous chemical indicators that provide information about the practices of people living above ground, such as the use of medicines and drugs, diet and the state of intestinal flora. By focusing on the city of Paris, the EGOUTS (sewers) research project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), is seeking to shed light on public policy ‘through the dark side of the City of Light’.

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

PCA-STREAM

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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Working with living matter

Aurélie Mossé

Vidéo

Working with living matter

Aurélie Mossé is a designer, researcher and head of the Soft Matters research group at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. Using micro-organisms, she is experimenting with the manufacture of innovative materials that are less costly in terms of fossil fuels or non-renewable resources. By producing calcite, bacteria could become allies in the creation of solid building materials.

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"The network is alive" — Networks and those who maintain them

Hafid Ait Sidi Hammou

"The network is alive" — Networks and those who maintain them

The French underground and aerial landscape is made up of approximately 910,000 km of drinking water distribution pipes, and over 1.4 million km of power lines. Indispensable in our daily lives, they are nonetheless invisible and increasingly questioned in the light of ecological and technological challenges that are transforming our territories. But can’t these infrastructures be seen as a heritage to be maintained and cared for?

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STREAM conducts researches to explore contemporary mutations. The lab investigates a number of contributions from different disciplinary fields and creative practices on the major contemporary issues in order to understand, in a transverse and collective way, their consequences for the architecture and urban planning of tomorrow. It brings together philosophers, sociologists, artists, engineers, biologists, economists, and architects to crystallize a kaleidoscopic and forward-looking vision of the various issues it addresses.

All research axes

Architectural transition
Data & Design Technology
Living systems
New imaginaries
New uses

This theme explores the sustainability issues raised by the Anthropocene at the scale of buildings and urban environments, in all their material aspects, from design and construction to the uses to which they are put.

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Stone

Elisabeth Bouchaud, Cyril Pressacco, Denis Macrez, Ana Hedan, Paul Vergonjeanne

Vidéo

Stone

Discover the inaugural lecture of the “Alma Matter” series! In a world where the myth of abundance is collapsing, this series of lectures looks at what matter really has to offer. Actors, professions, economies, temporalities, geopolitics: how do contemporary issues of creation take shape through those of matter? Each talk focuses on a particular material, and brings together its stakeholders in a dialogue. The use of stone in construction declined during the twentieth century. Today, its return is acclaimed for its qualities: inertia, durability, low-emission processing, local presence… but what techniques and applications will be used in 2024? As part of the City Metabolism Chair supported by the Université Paris Sciences & Lettres.

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“ What will Paris be like under 50°C? How can we postpone this scenario and be better prepared for it? ”

Paris at 50°C

Alexandre Florentin

“ What will Paris be like under 50°C? How can we postpone this scenario and be better prepared for it? ”

Paris at 50°C

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Metal

Antonin Yuji Maeno, Manon Leconte, Patrick Le Pense, Cyrille Terrolles

Vidéo

Metal

A symbol of the industrial revolution, the rise of metal in construction accompanied the renewal of Paris under Haussmann. Its origins in blast furnaces is associated with a high carbon footprint. Yet it is still widely used in facades, and seems promising for circular economy, as it is easy to dismantle. But is this enough of an advantage? As part of the City Metabolism Chair supported by the Université Paris Sciences & Lettres.

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Soil

Emmanuelle Déchelette, Lucie Ponard, Thomas Gaudron, Jean-Claude Morel

Vidéo

Soil

Although soil is used as a building material in many parts of the world, it has often been regarded as a waste product in France in recent decades, with little use being made of excavated soil. However, its thermal and hygrometric properties, its extremely low carbon footprint when used raw, its abundance and the natural variations in colour that it offers in every region make it a rich and inspiring material for today’s architects and designers. How can we adapt our building techniques to bring this material into line with contemporary requirements, and get rid of the vision of primitive housing that it still evokes for many people?

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Aesthetic of Structures

Antoine Laugier, Thanh-Phong Lê

Vidéo

Aesthetic of Structures

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“ How are territories coping with reduced energy capacity? ”

Downscaling Energy

Labex Futurs Urbains