Stream 05

Design with care, interview with Antoine Fenoglio and Cynthia Fleury

Antoine Fenoglio & Cynthia Fleury

Design with care, interview with Antoine Fenoglio and Cynthia Fleury

The encounter between philosopher Cynthia Fleury and designer Antoine Fenoglio offers an example of crossing practices around the idea of design with care, which allows a “design with purpose” based on the idea that fragility favors in a systemic way the practice towards environmental and social issues. With the concept of proof of care, experimentation itself becomes a form of care that leads to a reflection on modes of governance. Designers become integrators, diplomats between expertises, relying on their know-how in representation and prototyping.

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Experimenting with new modes of representation

Frédérique Aït-Touati

Article

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.

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A Multilevel Approach to Care

Sandra Laugier

Article

A Multilevel Approach to Care

The logic of domination is now broadly called into question and the pandemic crisis has indeed revealed the importance of everyday professions, giving new relevance to care ethics. These encompass a general attitude of care as well as an entire field of occupations and practices that are made invisible. Philosopher Sandra Laugier, who popularized the concept in France, traces its roots back to the feminist struggles that aimed to make another voice heard, in the opposition between ethics centered on good and evil, which are rather male and highly valued, and ethics centered on responsibility, which tend to be female and discredited. Care thus offers a systemic framework that makes it possible to take into account vulnerability and responsibility at all scales, from the household to the planet.

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The Urban Commons: Cement of the "Contributory City"

Claire Brossaud

Article

Claire Brossaud

The Urban Commons: Cement of the "Contributory City"

Faced with unprecedented environmental, economic, and public health challenges, cities must innovate to reinvent themselves. Concurrently with the initiatives of renaturation and the technological advances of the smart city, we are also witnessing a proliferation of urban experiments building on social intelligences based on the reinterpretation of the ideas of the commons. Claire Brossaud analyzes how these forms of sharing of natural or intellectual resources are built around the promotion of the concept of collective use and action. The commons remains a practice that is in the making, permanently under construction. Moreover, it stems from an instituted collective intelligence and we will thus require a highly codified governance in order to move towards a city that isn’t simply intelligent or collaborative, but truly contributive.

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Demystifying and Repoliticizing Urban Data

Jérôme Denis & David Pontille

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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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In the School of the Urban Anthopocene

Michel Lussault

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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.

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Inclusive Intelligence

Nicolas Bourriaud

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Inclusive Intelligence

Artists are contemporaries of the transformations of their time and find themselves immersed in the biosphere, in a gesture of rupture from the dualisms of Western thought. Nicolas Bourriaud views this as stemming from “inclusive thought.” Far removed from the representations of human beings as positioned at the center of their “environment,” like figures against a background, inclusive art expresses a realization of our entanglement within all living milieux. Moving beyond the “formulas of subjugation” generated by binary thought and epitomized since Aristotle by the divide between matter and form, active and passive, and nature and culture, contemporary artists cooperate with the living and compose networks of relations.

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Urban Co-evolutions

Pascal Picq

Article

Pascal Picq

Urban Co-evolutions

Through the long-term perspective specific to paleoanthropologists, Pascal Picq can analyze the evolution of the human line in view of the parallel and sometimes jarring history of its habitat. In particular, he highlights how changes in ways of working have been a driver of the radical transformation of urban forms throughout history. He considers that the conditions for a new wave of change that could thoroughly transform our cities are already established, and he calls for new forms of nomadic living, in terms of housing and ways of moving around, as well as lifestyles organized on the basis of fusion-fission models of society. He also calls for a return of anthropology into the city, in order to make it easier for residents to reclaim their space.

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From Weak AI to Organic Artificial Intelligence

Bruno Maisonnier

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From Weak AI to Organic Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has taken center stage in the prospective narratives of the city, yet Bruno Maisonnier emphasizes the need to differentiate “weak” AI, which is less about intellect than computing power, from the perspective of an “organic” AI, developed following the model of the brain and social insects, and which would be capable of carrying out highly complex tasks with low data and energy needs, of self-learning, and making rational arguments. In spite of the risks inherent in implementing any new technology before its use is regulated, AI heralds real progress for our societies, in particular, through optimizing the efficiency of genetic engineering.

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Design with care

Antoine Fenoglio & Cynthia Fleury

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Design with care

As multidisciplinary practices based on attention to a variety of intelligences are developing in response to contemporary complexity, the encounter between philosopher Cynthia Fleury and designer Antoine Fenoglio offers an example of an intersection of practices enriching a common vision around the “Design with Care” approach. This allows for “design with intent” based on the idea that fragility can help systemically extend the design practice to environmental and social issues. With the “proof of care” concept, experimentation itself becomes a form of care that leads to pondering modes of governance. Within this multidisciplinary approach of care, designers become integrators and act as diplomats between different types of expertise, building on their know-how in representation and prototyping.

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Sharing an Understanding of Urban Complexity

Cécile Maisonneuve

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Sharing an Understanding of Urban Complexity

The digital revolution brings about a changeover akin to that of the Renaissance, embodying, according to Cécile Maisonneuve, a new manifestation of human genius. Beyond catastrophism, she considers that the environmental crisis is a challenge we give ourselves that we must address head on in order to invent a new humanism. She chairs the Fabrique de la Cité, an international, multidisciplinary observatory/school of urban good practices, investigating the city in all of its complexity in order to share a level of understanding of today’s key challenges and to build a shared vision. The challenge is to invent new forms of democracy and to provide proof by example of what collective intelligence can tangibly achieve in cities.

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Considering Separation Beyond Dualism

Virginie Maris

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Considering Separation Beyond Dualism

The environmental crisis and the realization of the Anthropocene have fundamentally altered the way we relate to nature. Dissenting with the idea that nature is “dying” and opting for the idea of a generalized hybridity, Virginie Maris advocates keeping a separation—which she distinguishes from dualism—between man and nature, as a radical otherness worthy of attention, care, and respect. This vision of nature as the “wild part of the world,” free from human intentionality, helps put into perspective renaturation and rewilding processes, but also criticizes the notion of ecosystem services, in particular due to their dimension of commodification of nature and their contingency on an ideology of economic growth.

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Developing and Disseminating a New Ecosystemic Law

Marine Calmet

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Developing and Disseminating a New Ecosystemic Law

The questioning of the binary vision of the world proceeding from modernity, which set nature and culture apart, examines in great depth our relationship with the living and the place granted to it. If we are to overcome our anthropocentrism, how can we then assign a new status to nature in order to better preserve it? For Marine Calmet, this involves moving beyond our attitude of domination of the living and productivist logics of growth and to instead think in terms of commons and the protection of the living. With the forward-looking curriculum Wild Legal, she explores and imagines the creation of new legal tools based on concrete case studies, in particular around the concept of ecocide, to protect the environment and imagine types of governance that could help achieve a more harmonious articulation of the local and global scales.

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Arguing for Spatial Intelligence

Jacques Lévy

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Arguing for Spatial Intelligence

At a time when the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have plunged cities around the globe into an unprecedented crisis, geographer Jacques Lévy reframes this questioning as forming part of a long tradition of criticism against urbanity, associated with the human quest for autonomy considered as proceeding from a culpable hubris. He doubts that there will be any lasting disaffection towards the city. To the contrary, he sees the opportunity to restore urbanity at the heart of urban territories via a combination of density and diversity, two unique drivers of creativity within cities. The founder of a multidisciplinary chair on spatial intelligence, he calls for a unified approach of social sciences and the implementation of processes of collective intelligence in order to co-produce public goods, and urban space in particular, thanks to the involvement of local citizens.

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Transforming the City into a Museum for Contemporary Nature

Emanuele Coccia

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Transforming the City into a Museum for Contemporary Nature

As we are reconsidering our place as humans within nature, philosopher Emanuele Coccia investigates the natural phenomenon of metamorphosis and develops it into a philosophical concept that enables us to think about ourselves as part of a single breath of life that passes from one life form to another. Opposed to a penitential vision of environmentalism, he disagrees with the idea that the living should be viewed as fundamentally subsumed in the issue of ecological balances, life being a perpetual metamorphosis, poles apart from any notion of equilibrium. He champions the idea of a transformation of cities into “museums of contemporary nature” in order to overcome the conventional nature—culture divide and reinstate an urban interspecies approach focusing on cohabitation between all life forms and biodiversity.

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Building Consensus on AI-driven Urban Design

Kent Larson

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Building Consensus on AI-driven Urban Design

Though AI is revolutionizing the practice of architecture, it follows the increasing digitalization that has been unfolding since the 1980s. Kent Larson was one of its pioneers. Alongside the City Science research group at MIT, he explores how data can help imagine production processes and innovative forms of urban governance stemming from an evidence-based approach and favoring consensus-building through modeling. He views this holistic approach to the complexity of urban reality as the only one that could bring about genuine change, though it raises the issue of the quality and control of data. He also calls for community databases offering an alternative to surveillance capitalism.

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AI in Architecture

Stanislas Chaillou

Article

AI in Architecture

Artificial intelligence sparks as much enthusiasm as fear in its applications in the built and urban environment. Architect and data scientist Stanislas Chaillou puts this innovation into perspective by replacing in its technological timeline and demystifying the way it operates, which is in fact based on statistical learning. AI brings three major contributions to architects: assistance (for tedious chores), options (in the iterative design process), and the connection to context (by taking better account of local data). AI thus carries less of a risk of standardization than an opportunity to develop a style, to adapt to multiple contexts, and to vastly increase the capabilities of architects.

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Animistic Intelligence: the In-Between Network of the Living and the Machine

Marie-Ange Brayer

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Animistic Intelligence: the In-Between Network of the Living and the Machine

Nature returns to the city, but can this new relationship with the living influence the very processes and materials of architecture? As early as the 1960s, the avant-gardes explored the ties between the intelligence of machines and that of the living, it is now possible to hybridize organic and synthetic materials, opening up an experimental field between biodesign and computer science, to create alternative biomaterials, as well as bio-inspired morphologies, in a symbiosis between the natural and artificial which is key to a more symbiotic relationship with our environment.

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In Search of Nature-Based Solutions

Frédéric Ségur

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In Search of Nature-Based Solutions

Increasing the place of plants in cities plays a key role in mitigating the urban heat island effect, but trees must be addressed as a systemic issue, interfacing with the air, the ground, and water. For Frédéric Ségur, we must re-engage with the knowledge of urban forestry in order to regain our intelligence of trees and counter the mistaken assumptions on their life expectancy in urban settings. Beyond political declarations, the idea is to plant well rather than simply a lot, and to provide adequate conditions for them to develop—including space and living soil—and to take into account the ecotypes, but also to get the plant palette to change in relation to climate change.

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The University of Innovation

Kalevi Ekman

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The University of Innovation

The urban challenges of the Urbanocene have brought back into the spotlight the complexity of cities as a milieu and the lack of relevance of siloed knowledge and protagonists within modern urbanism. We must develop new approaches and foster urban innovation—but how can the protagonists making of the city of the future be trained to address this challenge? Aalto University, and, in particular, the Design Factory, headed by Kalevi Ekman, point towards a new approach. Born from the merger of three universities in Helsinki—in Technology, Art and Design, and Business—, it encourages cross-disciplinary tracks, entrepreneurial mindset, and prototype-based learning.

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Strategies for Urban Sustainability

Jeffrey Raven

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Strategies for Urban Sustainability

Urban density, though challenged by the pandemic, remains beneficial in mitigating sprawl. As urbanization nevertheless impacts the climate, the challenge, for Jeffrey Raven, lies in working on the actual shape and configuration of this density to make it sustainable and sound. Running counter to technological solutionism, this involves measures such as creating microclimates which provide ecosystem services following a holistic approach. He views the district as the proper spatial scale to operate at, due to its specific metabolism and because it is one of the most nimble scales to experiment at, through intermediate forms of governance. Architects gain a central role in coordinating synergies between the stakeholders involved, pragmatically understanding their interests, and, thanks to their skills in prototyping, offering a shareable narrative around “zero carbon” demonstration projects.

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Inhabiting Urban Mobility

Sonia Lavadinho

Article

Inhabiting Urban Mobility

We are faced with the need to bring about a behavioral shift to support the ecological, urban, and economic transitions. Given that space influences behavior, Sonia Lavadinho calls for a “relational city” to kickstart the process. Like the city itself, mobility could be perceived as not only functional, but as something that can take on a new dimension, as events. Enriching the urban experience through a proliferation of micro-events and social interactions would then change our spatiotemporal relationship to the city and foster better social behavior.

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Global Imagination, Local Action

Rob Hopkins

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Global Imagination, Local Action

The instigator of “The Transition Towns” movement, Rob Hopkins considers that the transition must become a permanent way of life and thought in order to get us through the current crisis. In particular, he proposes declaring a “climate emergency” and to build, teach, and produce only from this new perspective. The purpose is to spur us into action and to reevaluate the whole globalized capitalist system of production and consumption. By leveraging networked local and citizen actions that propose new universally replicable models based on the commons and cooperation, he intends to spark a global movement, in a spirit of degrowth.

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Rethinking Urban Spaces through Gender Mainstreaming

Leslie Kern

Article

Leslie Kern

Rethinking Urban Spaces through Gender Mainstreaming

The city of the future will be more sustainable, leveraging technology and nature, but it must also be more inclusive, which entails conducting efforts to engage in reflexivity regarding the making of the city. For feminist geographer Leslie Kern, the urban environment is not neutral. It was set up to support standards and power relations and was long operated by white men from the upper classes. She invites us to examine a broader spectrum of needs of city dwellers and to reintroduce embodied reality into urban design. This results in tangible spatial interventions, for instance, on lighting and walkways, but also on social issues, around mixed use and taking into account marginalized voices in the decision-making processes.

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