MAP Office workshop CAR/CASSE

This short quick time movie sets up the theme of the workshop 'CAR/CASSE' + references.
It can serve as a starting point for the students to start some research on the topic.
Our objective is to develop series of models - first conceptual - then scale 1:1 and place them in different parking spaces in Boulevard Raspail in the form of performances and event.
VALERIE PORTEFAIX & LAURENT GUTTIEREZ of MAP Office

Helen + Hard images

Helen + Hard programme

“Civilization occasionally progresses: Is there any more wonderful object, has technology ever created a more devine device than the trampolin?”
Michel Serres “Les cinq sens”

“ L'art du déplacement is a type of freedom. It is a kind of expression, trust in you. I do not think there is a clear definition for it. When you explain it to people, you say: yes I climb, I jump, I keep moving! It is the definition! But no one understands. They need to see things. It is only a state of mind. It is when you trust yourself, earn an energy. A better knowledge of your body, be able to move, to overcome obstacles in real world, or in virtual world, things of life. Everything that touch you in the head, everything that touch in your heart. Everything touching you physically.”
“About the philosophy of Parkour” —Châu Belle Dinh

The project is an investigation in the relation between play and cities.

It is an attempt to develop the city not through abstract models, masterplans, studies of infrastructure, program, and forms of densification etc., but through an immediate, corporal, sensual, fast, intelligent and intuitive contact:
through play or through creating conditions for play.

Key Questions:
What kind of an environment allows and encourages play?
What does play need in various settings, for various players?
How can play change our way of experiencing, using and understanding the public domain? ( e.g.Parkour)
How can it enrich and determinate city-development?
How can it infiltrate and transform existing city- scape?

Topics:
playstreets, playsubway, playhousing, playoffices, playshops, playsubway, playscapes, playgrounds, playmuseum etc.

Atterrissage reception, Équilibre Équilibre de chat, Franchissement, Lâché, Passe muraille, Passement ,Demitour, Passement ,Saut de chat, Planche Roulade, Saut de bras, Saut de fond, Saut de détente Saut de precision, Tic tac etc.

Brief idea about the process:
Each student chooses an area in Paris which is under development or in a state of transformation.
Hereafter she/he will develop/ perform experiments related to the theme in order to develop the chosen area.
The experiments have to result in an urban intervention reflecting the theme,

A more precise project-description will follow later.

Rainer Pirker 'Urban Seed' Programme

Background 1
Cities are changing all the time. Economic, political and social forces are the main reasons for these changes. A first radical change happened with the industrialization. The existing boundaries of cities have been demolished. The relation between the city and the countryside became blur.
Cities expanded and have been densified. These new conditions have been the background for most of the urban utopias.

Background 2
Paris is a city of radical urban changes and ideas.
Haussmann´s plan has its origin in political demands.
Corbusier´s idea is based on social conditions from the industrialization.
Friedman was envisioning a second layer, creating space for the individual.
Centre Pompidou is a small scale urban intervention with radical impact on the existing city.

Background 3
Cities are controlled by developers. Political and social forces are replaced by economical dictation. The periphery of cities all over the world is the result of this development. Areas without any identity, “urban islands” with social disruption are major problems of our cities today.


“urban seed” is a strategy in this situation. Urban seeds are strong urban interventions, giving impulses for social urban densification, for social links and urban identity. Public transportations are important not only for functional means of traffic, but also for urban seeding. Their stations are magnets and shall be focus points for urban seeds.

A subway or light rail train station is the focus for our program.
The station should not be just a hole in the earth, but enriched with program, bringing an urban impulse to the area. It should not be just shopping but some identity seed.
This program is switching between scales. It is subway station as an urban intervention. The intervention can be in one specific point or could be linear. It should be a vision, opening the mind. It is a contemporary approach for radical changes in the city of today. It could also be seen as a seed for a new understanding of public urban interventions with the background of the financial crises and a discussion for new divisions of power forces in the city.

All students are asked to find a location for an urban intervention in the periphery of Paris. They have to explain, why they choose this specific location concerning the goal to have an important impact on the urban life in the periphery and the link to other parts of Paris.

Students can work in groups up to three people. They should start a mental city scanning and prepare an analysis before the first meeting. Every group should have chosen the location already and prepare a short power point presentation for this meeting April 1st.

The schedule for the program is:
Lecture of Rainer Pirker: April 2nd 2009

Teaching session: April 1st 2009, April 3rd 2009
Teaching session: April 11th 2009, April 12th 2009, April 13th 2009
Teaching session: April 24th 2009
Teaching session: April 29th 2009
Final Presentation: May 1st 2009
In case any schedule change is necessary, it will be announced in time ahead.