Trained in fine arts and industrial design, Alain Bublex has worked for Renault before devoting himself entirely to plastic creation.
Fascinated by the city, he developed a reflection on planning utopias through his work. In this capacity, he participated in the third issue of the book-magazine STREAM, Habiter l’Anthropocène. We returned to this collaboration in the documentary “PCA-STREAM: from research to action”.
From his position as a visual artist, he gives a dystopian vision of the consequences that Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin might have had on the outskirts of Paris.
His connoisseur look at the evolution of architecture confirms the need to develop multidisciplinarity within the profession.
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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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
Collective intelligence has become key to understanding and acting upon the complexity of the contemporary world. But how can the conditions for its advent be brought about? Originating in PSL, the “Life in the Making” collective, which brings together researchers in natural sciences, in the humanities, as well as artists, has been exploring this dialogue between intelligences around the theme of the living since 2014. By operating through a flexible framework, the collective has developed a praxis of interdisciplinary collective intelligence—all the while establishing new insights on life, in particular through experimentations between art and science.