Graduate work Research & teaching Ecosystems / Natural environments Innovation / Technology / Experimental Livability / Social Practices Theory / Policy / Analytical approaches
Strasbourg, France

Contemporary Urbanity in Design

Creative practices - Critical readings
Original language
French
Type of teaching
Seminar
Number of students
20-25 students / year
Year
2019-2022

The objective of the seminar is to familiarize students with "creative practices", and more specifically with performative, graphic and textual practices, oriented towards the understanding and representation of contemporary places and territories, of their stakes and possible transformations. At a time of "big data", technical and statistical analyses and BIM, which seek to translate in their own way the current urban complexity, the seminar proposes to deepen the contributions of the creative, experimental, deeply human posture, as a form of resistance against the standardization of the views and as a source of innovation. It would thus be a question of questioning and testing the capacities of these "creative practices" to enrich the approach of conception of the spatial project, both in the analysis of the existing and in the formulation of what does not exist yet. The idea is to understand the contribution of these approaches and their possible articulations with the more quantitative and technical approaches on the one hand, and with the more traditional methods and tools of conception of the architect, on the other hand. Finally, the question of the project itself will be raised: to what extent can it be considered as a creative practice in its own right?

The objective is to put the students in a situation of creative production in front of an urban territory at stake. Starting with the latter, students experiment with a range of creative practices: walking as a sensitive experience and as construction of a territory, subjective/mental cartographies, contemporary literary creation, datavision, atlases, etc. 
In relation with the SuMo Rhine research project (AMUP, IMM Chair, INTERREG Project), one of the privileged sites of investigation was the territory of the A35 highwayway (awaiting downgrading).
 
The seminar was the object of a partnership with the Department of Letters of the University of Strasbourg (UNISTRA), proposing joint sessions with the writing workshop "Creative Writing as Spatial Practice" (J. Hawkins dir.). 

Keywords creative practices, walking as a sensitive experience and as the construction of a territory, mental mapping, contemporary literary creation, data vision, atlases