Dominique Boullier
Dominique Boullier is a sociologist and senior researcher at the Digital Humanities Institute of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He was a professor at Sciences Po Paris and Medialab manager with Bruno Latour. A specialist in digital technology and cognitive technologies, he is the author of L'urbanité numérique, published in 1999, of Sociologie du numérique, published in 2016, and founder of the magazine Cosmopolitiques, which he describes as "a laboratory of political ecology ".
Our Digital Skins
The growing presence of information technology and data in the urban space has blurred the limits between the real and the virtual. Specializing in digital and cognitive technologies, the sociologist Dominique Boullier proposes the notion of “habitele” as a conceptual framework for the envelopes that we create in the digital realm. This notion allows us to explore the way in which we inhabit the digital, but also to imagine the ways in which we regulate our relationship with data, in order to avoid technology—which formats our experience—having a hold over us, while at the same time preserving the porosities that allow exchange to take place. The issue then is not to intensify or accumulate technologies, but to redefine our environment so as to generate limits and create a digital interior. The urban form is destined to become part of these individual digital envelopes, depending on systems that are not simply stacks of bubbles but which adapt to the new layers of existence that the digital brings with it.
The Time of Trees
The rediscovery of the ecosystems services of nature in urban environments, in particular regarding pollution mitigation and fighting against heat islands, have put a new emphasis on the intelligence of trees, as botanist Francis Hallé describes “plant architecture.” He advocates making trees more prominent in cities, though as a prerequisite to any urbanization, which implies promoting an intimate knowledge of the way they operate and their temporality in order to improve their planting, maintenance, and respect.
Reinhabiting the bioregions
Mathias Rollot, PhD in Architecture, presents the “bioregion” concept, which was developed in the United States during the 1970s as a tool to describe the possibility of inventing new ways of living. By pushing beyond administrative boundaries, it allows us to deploy an imaginary (rather than a final map) of a territory that must be inhabited better, i.e., reinhabited.
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.
Talking Data
Caroline Goulard is a data journalist and co-founder of Dataveyes. She turns collected data into digital experiences to make it more understandable for everyone. Thanks to new ways of visualization, it is now possible to understand a population’s needs and to develop services that anticipate new uses.
AI doesn’t replace architects but supports them
Researcher and data scientist Stanislas Chaillou investigates how AI can enable architects to support and enhance their practice. A small sampler of a new book published by Éditions du Moniteur in March 2021.
Co-creating a learning society
François Taddei is a geneticist and co-founder, with Ariel Lindner, of the Learning Planet Institute (formerly known as CRI). Conceived as a school for the 21st century, the institute combines artificial intelligence and collective intelligence to reinvent ways of learning, teaching and doing research.
AI facing complex urban environments
Hubert Beroche is the founder of the Urban AI think tank, dedicated to the field of urban artificial intelligence. He is the curator of the Eyes on the street lecture series, run together in partnership with the SCAI (Sorbonne Center for Artifical Intelligence), and explains here how urban AI can help us understand the city.
Complexity, multiplicity, and adapatation within ecosystems
Contemporary architectural research is often fascinated by biological life but with an approach that goes beyond simple organic metaphors thanks to recent technological developments. Alisa Andrasek discusses the link between biology and her architectural practice, and her interest in the distribution of information in natural processes—a complexity that she tries to approach via big data. Her work in computational design is influenced by the convergence between information and materials, in an increasingly complex and open synthesis which enables it to go beyond the production of form and address the dynamic processes of matter itself. Alisa Andrasek is an architect, director and founder of the Biothing laboratory. She teaches at the Architectural Association of London.
Modeling the City Using Proteins
Researcher Claire Lesieur works at the CNRS Ampère Laboratory on the Go Pro project, which applies a computational model developed for protein folding to urban environments. The shape-changing properties of proteins are put to use in an attempt to map out the opportunities for urban growth that don’t involve urban sprawl.
Explore More
Eager to share more generously the results of its collaborations and research, PCA-STREAM publishes STREAM VOICES, its online magazine!