Stream Voices 02
Eager to share more generously the fruits of its collaborations and research, PCA-STREAM publishes STREAM VOICES, a digital research and innovation magazine that explores the making of the metabolic city.
“ Every citizen on the planet is a gardener. ”
“ Every citizen on the planet is a gardener. ”
The gardener's intelligence
Gilles Clément coined the concept of the ‘planetary garden’ which invites everyone to take care of the Earth as they would a garden. Having all too often been confronted with the sheer ignorance of how ecosystems and the living world operate, he, therefore, proposes creating a Ministry of Knowledge to lift us out of the ‘Stupidocene.’ Read transcript A PCA-STREAM production Coordination: Jasmine Léonardon Editing: Mattéo Caranta Music: Alexandre Desplat
Dream of the Aerocene
In order to help us move beyond the Anthropocene, Tomás Saraceno, an Argentinian artist imagines a new era, the Aerocene. By mobilizing science-based tools, he proposes turning away from extractive and predatory behaviors in order to try and change our habits rather than the climate. With his recent work Aerocene Pasha, he achieved the most sustainable flight in history and revealed concrete alternative actions.
The challenges of timber construction in addressing the climate emergency
The construction sector accounts for one third of France’s CO₂ emissions. This environmental footprint can be reduced by using wood, but wood only stores carbon temporarily. The challenge of sustainable construction therefore lies in a comprehensive approach that includes forest management and the durability of buildings. No ‘woodwashing’ here, but some thoughts on mixed construction!
Organic design: towards new artefacts
Confronted with environmental challenges, designers are exploring new materials that could replace plastics. Options include biodegradable, renewable, biobased, and self-growing materials. Discover three prototypes.
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.
The future is in the forest
When speaking of architecture, do you consider the architecture of trees? The famous botanist and specialist of tropical forests reflects on the growth models of trees, and interplant communication, as well as his project to recreate 70,000 ha of primary forest in Europe.
Giving a sense to fiction
Designer Ramy Fischler looks back at the Sens-Fiction exhibition, produced as part of the Lille Métropole World Design Capital event. Noting a ‘breakdown of imaginaries,’ he proposes inventing new stories to figure out desirable futures. An online exhibition to be visited here
Reactivating heritage and the local neighborhood through art
Laure Colliex spearheaded the establishment of a residence for 200 artists in a high-rise slated for refurbishment. This temporary place of creation located in Clichy is conducive to collaboration between young artists using the surrounding area as a material.
Investigating, collecting, prefiguring: the case of Marseille's MuCEM
Denis Chevallier has headed MuCEM’s Research and Education Department since its inception. An ethologist and museum curator, he was tasked with prefiguring the new museum and ran many ‘collection surveys’ to inform its exhibitions, emphasizing objects to foster connections as is key in achieving a socially relevant museum.
Museums as generators of viewpoints
Though the virtualization of museums is a corollary of the health crisis, curator Nicolas Bourriaud insists on the importance of physically meeting artworks. He postulates that the museum institution cannot be fully transformed without inventing places for community life and experiences.
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.
Demystifying and Repoliticizing Urban Data
In the face of the promises of the prophets of artificial intelligence and the marketing of those major economic players promoting the smart city as a solution to urban ills, Jérôme Denis and David Pontille remind us of the irreducible materiality and fragility of cities. Demystifying what they perceive as a form of “neopositivism” of data, they point out that data doesn’t exist per se, and in fact must be generated and then maintained at a significant cost. As a result, data is never neutral and takes on a fundamentally political dimension. Understanding this framework leads them to promote a paradigm of maintenance and fragility, instead of the more common one of sustainability and resilience, when approaching urban realities.
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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!
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