A graduate of the École des Ponts et Chaussées of Paris and of MIT in Boston, he went on to lead the international activities of Ricardo Bofill’s Taller de Arquitectura in Paris for ten years. In 2000, he received a degree in architecture from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris Belleville and founded the PCA-STREAM. In 2008, he launched an international and multidisciplinary research program, Stream, that strives to anticipate the mutations of the contemporary world.
Stream is a transdisciplinary magazine founded by Philippe Chiambaretta in 2009. By bringing together philosophers, sociologists, artists, engineers, biologists, economists and architects, it crystallizes a kaleidoscopic, forward-looking vision of the urban issues it tackles. It’s a way of doing research, by confronting expertise, at the crossroads of knowledge!
In France, the construction sector accounts for one third of the country’s CO2 emissions. Materials, which are partly responsible for this ratio, are extracted, transported, processed, poured or placed, dumped or incinerated… All these steps are opportunities to work on limiting impacts, involving architects, among other things, in deploying a new aesthetic.
Beyond the debates surrounding the Anthropocene—dating it, taking responsibility—the need to combat the disastrous effects of human development on the planet is beyond doubt. Acknowledging that these consequences are specifically incarnated in cities, architect Philippe Chiambaretta points toward a paradigm shift—moving from a mechanical vision of the world to an idea centered on the living—that reactivates the notion of a metabolism. The concept of the living allows us to go beyond the dualism and anthropocentrism introduced by modernity, driving us toward a symbolic and practical idea of the city as an urban metabolism and pointing toward an approach that takes the ecological challenge into account in order to “manage” the city. Flying in the face of the formal pride of the architect, the figure of metabolic planner emerges, able to combine complex visions and approaches, notably by moving beyond the traditional rifts between urban protagonists, working toward an intense diversity of uses, opening up temporal dynamics, and by reintegrating the living.
Interview by Ingrid Nappi-Choulet on February 23rd, 2016 at ESSEC Business School, on the occasion of the publication of Cahier # 4 : “Digital in the City of Tomorrow : What are the stakes for real estate? ” for the Chair of Real Estate and Sustainable Development – ESSEC Business School
New relationships to nature have been fostered by the increasing awareness of our entry in the era of the Anthropocene and as a result the figure of biological life has largely become an obsessive metaphor. For artists, it is less a form of aesthetical inspiration than an opportunity to reconsider their work by circumventing the separations and simplifications of modern culture. Pierre Huyghe talks to Stream about his interest for the complexity of biological life, and the manner in which he is trying to incorporate it in his work over time, as well as his concepts of indifference, non-destination and under-determination. Introducing biological life in an oeuvre comes down to accepting a loss of control, creating a spectrum of undefined possibilities, and bringing about areas of “non-knowledge” and speculative conditions in the life forms. Pierre Huygue is a French artist. A recipient of many awards, and having been exhibited in the most prestigious international cultural institutions, his work investigates the complexity of organic life in order to create the conditions for the emergence of a self-evolving work. Interview with Éric Troncy, advises large companies on their strategy, organization and management culture. He is the co-founder of he consulting firm Quartier Libre, and Philippe Chiambaretta, graduated from the École des Ponts et Chaussées of Paris and MIT in Boston. He is the founder and director of PCA-STREAM.
The architect is located at the heart of urban challenges whose solutions will allow a city to adapt to profound changes in the global age of the Anthropocene. He must be able to go beyond traditional knowledge and overcome the obsession with form and the idea of a solitary creator. Philippe Chiambaretta strives to synthesize these factors and the challenges of the current radical paradigm shift with the collapse of the modern Western worldview. Based on an understanding of the Anthropocene era, he seeks the foundations of a new vision of architecture based on an open and collaborative approach to creation. His view is not blinded by the promises of technology, but is one in which the city exists in a continuum with the biosphere. Philippe Chiambaretta graduated from the École des Ponts et Chaussées of Paris and MIT in Boston. He is the founder and director of PCA-STREAM.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Eager to share more generously the results of its collaborations and research, PCA-STREAM publishes STREAM VOICES, its online magazine!