Anthropocene
“ Architecture has a unique relationship with the transformation of reality: it is, in a way, atlastic. ”
“ Architecture has a unique relationship with the transformation of reality: it is, in a way, atlastic. ”
Architecture is a political practice
Manuel Bello Marcano is an architect, lecturer at ENSA Saint-Etienne and sociologist of the imaginary at the Centre d’études pour l’actuel et le quotidien – CEAQ, Université Paris Descartes (Center for Current and Everyday Studies at Paris Descartes University). In his view, architecture is an act of aggregation designed to put the world in order: in this sense, he is interested in the political fictions mobilized to equip our thinking and, in this case, to build a “ togetherness ”. Follow his words and discover animality understood as community.
Living matter
With Marie Sarah Adenis, artist, Aurélie Mossé, research professor at ENSAD, and Simon Trancart, Head of Adaptative Laboratory Evolution at Ginkgo BioWorks. Wood is often referred to as a living material because it reacts to ambient humidity and develops a patina. However, when a tree is cut down to exploit its wood, it dies and ceases to photosynthesise. What other forms of living matter can we cultivate and grow to build and create, and what ethics should we apply? What does the future hold for organic materials that can regenerate rapidly or perhaps never die and continue to evolve as living matter? From the colourimetric properties of microbes to the use of algae to develop alternative chemical reactions to form cements and ceramics that emit less carbon, what possibilities does living matter offer us for rethinking creation?
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.
“ What will Paris be like under 50°C? How can we postpone this scenario and be better prepared for it? ”
“ 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?
City-Metabolism Chair
Périg Pitrou is an anthropologist at the CNRS and head of the “Anthropology of Life” team at the Collège de France. He is Scientific Director of the City-Metabolism Chair, which brings together PCA-STREAM and PSL University (Paris Sciences et Lettres). The aim: to identify how interdisciplinary collaborations can help overcome the challenges of building the urban worlds of the future.
A "third place" research lab
Diego Landivar is a lecturer and researcher in economics and the founder of the Origens Media Lab, a “third place” research lab developed to address critical situations. More flexible and responsive than conventional research laboratories, Origens focuses on the far-reaching transformations brought about by the environmental crisis and supports civil society in its struggles.
Histories and imagineries of climate change
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz is a historian of science, technology, and the environment. He contributed to popularizing the concept of the Anthropocene in France with his book The Shock of the Anthropocene, which he co-wrote with Christophe Bonneuil. With Les Révoltes du ciel [The Revolts of the Sky], co-written with Fabien Locher, he traces the history of our relations to climate change to put into perspective our contemporary vision of environmental issues.
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.
Experimenting with new modes of representation
Artists are major protagonists of the way our representations and narratives change over time, through image as well as fiction, which Frédérique Aït-Touati views as playing a fundamental role in the advancement of sciences and the construction of a collective imaginary. She is thus engaged, through her alternative cartographies and theatrical performances, in “landing” the gaze we turn towards the earth in order to highlight our belonging to Gaia. Besides her research on the developments of our ontological representations, she promotes, through SPEAP program, a pedagogy of experience, multidisciplinarity, and the dialogue between art and science.
In the School of the Urban Anthopocene
The challenge of the Anthropocene must be addressed through cities, not only because they cluster challenges, but also because, according to Michel Lussault, their desirability will not decline in spite of various crises. The urbanity specific to the “relational city” remains crucial as an experience of otherness, and, in that respect, going full digital or generalized teleworking would represent a “counter-social” development. The increasing complexity of our global urbanization reinforces the systemic inscription of cities and drives urbanism towards ever-increasing levels of cross-disciplinarity, an approach he promotes at the École Urbaine de Lyon, in particular around the “common health” concept, intended to spatially approach issues of social justice, public healthcare, and ecosystem restoration.
Ecofeminist Art: on the concepf of heritage
The Anthropocene invites us to move beyond the idea of progress, universalism, and the logic of separation or domination of the modern project. It results in a fundamental change in the paradigm of contemporary art, especially around ecofeminist practices, which Tara Londi views as stemming from the feminist avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s. The critique of the capitalist exploitation of nature, therefore, ties in with that of the patriarchal oppression of women in ecofeminist artistic practices, revealing the unspoken history of women, Indigenous peoples, or animals. Beyond the rationalism of the visual realm and of language, archaic animist and holistic visions are revived.
How to reinvent the architectural profession
As part of the documentary “PCA-STREAM: From research to action”, we interviewed Jean-Louis Cohen, architect, historian of Architecture and professor at the Collège de France. He depicts a profession that is concerned about its place in the world today, and describes how architects are reinventing themselves in order to face the social, technical and environmental challenges of the 21st century.
Episode 3/5 - Documentary "PCA-STREAM : from research to action"
Episode 3/5 of the documentary “PCA-STREAM, from research to action” examines the question raised by STREAM 03 on the links between urbanization and preservation of natural resources in the so-called Anthropocene era, in which Man has become the dominant transformation force of the biosphere. How can we sustainably live on a finite planet? Based on a cradle-to-cradle dynamic, the Stream Building offers a concrete vision of what a metabolic building can be, producing and reusing its own resources. – In the documentary “PCA-STREAM, from research to action”, filmmaker Gilles Coudert takes his author’s perspective, a specialist in contemporary art and architecture, on the link between research and action at the heart of the practice of PCA-STREAM agency. He gives the floor to an international panel of researchers, creators and professionals associated with the work of the agency: philosophers, art critics, artists, investors, policy makers, users, etc. Three architectural projects, realized or in progress, are taken as case studies to illustrate the conditioning of the architectural form by this collaborative exploration approach: #cloud.paris (with SFL), the Stream Building (winner of the competition « Réinventer Paris » , with Eurosic) and Shake (Euralille, with Nacarat). Those projects embody the way in which a metabolic, open and innovative vision of the city takes shape through the exchange and creation of new synergies between actors and visions to move from urban utopia to concrete realization. A film directed by Gilles Coudert for the Lyon Architecture Biennial. A co-production PCA-STREAM and a.p.r.e.s. Production, 54 min, 2017. – With the interventions of: Nicolas Bel, engineer, specialist in urban agriculture, founder of Topager – Timothée Boitouzet, architect, entrepreneur, founder of Woodoo – Patrick Bouchain, architect and set designer – Nicolas Bourriaud, art historian, art critic and exhibition curator – Alain Bublex, artist – Thomas Camus, director of operations development at Eurosic – Philippe Chiambaretta, architect, founder of PCA-STREAM – Gilles Clément, landscape designer -Jean-Louis Cohen, architect, architecture historian, professor at Collège de France – Gilles Coudert, director, producer and publisher – Justine Culioli, assistant director of major projects at SFL – Clément Dirié, editor and art critic – Gilbert Emont, director of the Institut Palladio foundation – Julien Eymeri, strategy consultant and co-founder of Quartier Libre – Aurélien Gillier, publisher and designer, editor-in-chief of STREAM 02 – Bertrand Julien-Laferrière, former general manager of SFL – Thomas Lierman, CEO of Nacarat – Éric Mangion, artistic director of the National Contemporary Art Center Villa Arson – Ariane Michel, artist and filmmaker – Jean-Louis Missika, Deputy Mayor of Paris, in charge of town planning, architecture, the Greater Paris project, economic development and attractiveness – Yann Moulier-Boutang, economist and essayist, professor at UTC Compiègne and UTSEUS Shanghai – Pierre Musso, philosopher, professor at Telecom ParisTech – Julien Prévieux, artist – Julie Rouart, editor, editorial director of the art department at Flammarion – David Ruy, architect, director of SCI-Arc post-graduate program, Los Angeles – Xavier Veilhan, artist.
Episode 2/5 - Documentary "PCA-STREAM : from research to action"
Episode 2/5 of the documentary “PCA-STREAM, from research to action” traces the researches carried out for STREAM 02 on new work modes and workspaces. From the subprime mortgage crisis to the new liquid form taken by work, which irremediably blurs the line between work life and private life, this episode concludes with the project #cloud, result of cross-reflection on knowledge capitalism and users’ new expectations about comfort. – In the documentary “PCA-STREAM, from research to action”, filmmaker Gilles Coudert takes his author’s perspective, a specialist in contemporary art and architecture, on the link between research and action at the heart of the practice of PCA-STREAM agency. He gives the floor to an international panel of researchers, creators and professionals associated with the work of the agency: philosophers, art critics, artists, investors, policy makers, users, etc. Three architectural projects, realized or in progress, are taken as case studies to illustrate the conditioning of the architectural form by this collaborative exploration approach: #cloud.paris (with SFL), the Stream Building (winner of the competition « Réinventer Paris » , with Eurosic) and Shake (Euralille, with Nacarat). Those projects embody the way in which a metabolic, open and innovative vision of the city takes shape through the exchange and creation of new synergies between actors and visions to move from urban utopia to concrete realization. A film directed by Gilles Coudert for the Lyon Architecture Biennial. A co-production PCA-STREAM and a.p.r.e.s. Production, 54 min, 2017. – With the interventions of: Nicolas Bel, engineer, specialist in urban agriculture, founder of Topager – Timothée Boitouzet, architect, entrepreneur, founder of Woodoo – Patrick Bouchain, architect and set designer – Nicolas Bourriaud, art historian, art critic and exhibition curator – Alain Bublex, artist – Thomas Camus, director of operations development at Eurosic – Philippe Chiambaretta, architect, founder of PCA-STREAM – Gilles Clément, landscape designer -Jean-Louis Cohen, architect, architecture historian, professor at Collège de France – Gilles Coudert, director, producer and publisher – Justine Culioli, assistant director of major projects at SFL – Clément Dirié, editor and art critic – Gilbert Emont, director of the Institut Palladio foundation – Julien Eymeri, strategy consultant and co-founder of Quartier Libre – Aurélien Gillier, publisher and designer, editor-in-chief of STREAM 02 – Bertrand Julien-Laferrière, former general manager of SFL – Thomas Lierman, CEO of Nacarat – Éric Mangion, artistic director of the National Contemporary Art Center Villa Arson – Ariane Michel, artist and filmmaker – Jean-Louis Missika, Deputy Mayor of Paris, in charge of town planning, architecture, the Greater Paris project, economic development and attractiveness – Yann Moulier-Boutang, economist and essayist, professor at UTC Compiègne and UTSEUS Shanghai – Pierre Musso, philosopher, professor at Telecom ParisTech – Julien Prévieux, artist – Julie Rouart, editor, editorial director of the art department at Flammarion – David Ruy, architect, director of SCI-Arc post-graduate program, Los Angeles – Xavier Veilhan, artist.
Episode 5/5 - Documentary "PCA-STREAM, from research to action"
Episode 5/5, epilogue of the documentary “PCA-STREAM, from research to action”, gives the floor to the various speakers in order to open, in their respective disciplinary fields, the scope of research and foresight. As a reflection laboratory, STREAM aims at questioning our tools and working methods in order to respond to a changing world and to live in it in a contextual and sustainable way while reinventing the profession of architect. – In the documentary “PCA-STREAM, from research to action”, filmmaker Gilles Coudert takes his author’s perspective, a specialist in contemporary art and architecture, on the link between research and action at the heart of the practice of PCA-STREAM agency. He gives the floor to an international panel of researchers, creators and professionals associated with the work of the agency: philosophers, art critics, artists, investors, policy makers, users, etc. Three architectural projects, realized or in progress, are taken as case studies to illustrate the conditioning of the architectural form by this collaborative exploration approach: #cloud.paris (with SFL), the Stream Building (winner of the competition « Réinventer Paris » , with Eurosic) and Shake (Euralille, with Nacarat). Those projects embody the way in which a metabolic, open and innovative vision of the city takes shape through the exchange and creation of new synergies between actors and visions to move from urban utopia to concrete realization. A film directed by Gilles Coudert for the Lyon Architecture Biennial. A co-production PCA-STREAM and a.p.r.e.s. Production, 54 min, 2017. – With the interventions of: Nicolas Bel, engineer, specialist in urban agriculture, founder of Topager – Timothée Boitouzet, architect, entrepreneur, founder of Woodoo – Patrick Bouchain, architect and set designer – Nicolas Bourriaud, art historian, art critic and exhibition curator – Alain Bublex, artist – Thomas Camus, director of operations development at Eurosic – Philippe Chiambaretta, architect, founder of PCA-STREAM – Gilles Clément, landscape designer -Jean-Louis Cohen, architect, architecture historian, professor at Collège de France – Gilles Coudert, director, producer and publisher – Justine Culioli, assistant director of major projects at SFL – Clément Dirié, editor and art critic – Gilbert Emont, director of the Institut Palladio foundation – Julien Eymeri, strategy consultant and co-founder of Quartier Libre – Aurélien Gillier, publisher and designer, editor-in-chief of STREAM 02 – Bertrand Julien-Laferrière, former general manager of SFL – Thomas Lierman, CEO of Nacarat – Éric Mangion, artistic director of the National Contemporary Art Center Villa Arson – Ariane Michel, artist and filmmaker – Jean-Louis Missika, Deputy Mayor of Paris, in charge of town planning, architecture, the Greater Paris project, economic development and attractiveness – Yann Moulier-Boutang, economist and essayist, professor at UTC Compiègne and UTSEUS Shanghai – Pierre Musso, philosopher, professor at Telecom ParisTech – Julien Prévieux, artist – Julie Rouart, editor, editorial director of the art department at Flammarion – David Ruy, architect, director of SCI-Arc post-graduate program, Los Angeles – Xavier Veilhan, artist.
Episode 4/5 - Documentary "PCA-STREAM, from research to action"
The episode 4/5 of the documentary “PCA-STREAM, from research to action” outlines the subject of STREAM 04 (which will be published at the end of 2017). This new issue explores the repercussions of the Anthropocene era. It proposes to consider a new paradigm for the living, seen as a continuum, to overcome the existing divisions between nature and culture, object and subject, living and non-living. The Shake building in Lille, on which a part of the neighboring park winds up and continues, is a concrete example of this new cycle of study. – In the documentary “PCA-STREAM, from research to action”, filmmaker Gilles Coudert takes his author’s perspective, a specialist in contemporary art and architecture, on the link between research and action at the heart of the practice of PCA-STREAM agency. He gives the floor to an international panel of researchers, creators and professionals associated with the work of the agency: philosophers, art critics, artists, investors, policy makers, users, etc. Three architectural projects, realized or in progress, are taken as case studies to illustrate the conditioning of the architectural form by this collaborative exploration approach: #cloud.paris (with SFL), the Stream Building (winner of the competition « Réinventer Paris » , with Eurosic) and Shake (Euralille, with Nacarat). Those projects embody the way in which a metabolic, open and innovative vision of the city takes shape through the exchange and creation of new synergies between actors and visions to move from urban utopia to concrete realization. A film directed by Gilles Coudert for the Lyon Architecture Biennial. A co-production PCA-STREAM and a.p.r.e.s. Production, 54 min, 2017. – With the interventions of: Nicolas Bel, engineer, specialist in urban agriculture, founder of Topager – Timothée Boitouzet, architect, entrepreneur, founder of Woodoo – Patrick Bouchain, architect and set designer – Nicolas Bourriaud, art historian, art critic and exhibition curator – Alain Bublex, artist – Thomas Camus, director of operations development at Eurosic – Philippe Chiambaretta, architect, founder of PCA-STREAM – Gilles Clément, landscape designer -Jean-Louis Cohen, architect, architecture historian, professor at Collège de France – Gilles Coudert, director, producer and publisher – Justine Culioli, assistant director of major projects at SFL – Clément Dirié, editor and art critic – Gilbert Emont, director of the Institut Palladio foundation – Julien Eymeri, strategy consultant and co-founder of Quartier Libre – Aurélien Gillier, publisher and designer, editor-in-chief of STREAM 02 – Bertrand Julien-Laferrière, former general manager of SFL – Thomas Lierman, CEO of Nacarat – Éric Mangion, artistic director of the National Contemporary Art Center Villa Arson – Ariane Michel, artist and filmmaker – Jean-Louis Missika, Deputy Mayor of Paris, in charge of town planning, architecture, the Greater Paris project, economic development and attractiveness – Yann Moulier-Boutang, economist and essayist, professor at UTC Compiègne and UTSEUS Shanghai – Pierre Musso, philosopher, professor at Telecom ParisTech – Julien Prévieux, artist – Julie Rouart, editor, editorial director of the art department at Flammarion – David Ruy, architect, director of SCI-Arc post-graduate program, Los Angeles – Xavier Veilhan, artist.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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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stream voices
Eager to share more generously the results of its collaborations and research, PCA-STREAM publishes STREAM VOICES, its online magazine!
Discover Stream Voices