‘Crossroads 2015. Human cities_challenging the city scale’ is a creative workshop organized by Cité du design for the Human Cities program during the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne 2015. Focused on the conversion of vacant shops and ground floor premises in the Jacquard district, it will bring together local skateholders, designers and international networks . It will be animated by the Carton Plein association, which occupies B.E.A.U. – the temporary urban action office during the Biennial. Carton Plein leads an atypical study in connection with the planners of the city, partners of the EPASE project – Etablissement Public of Saint-Etienne – in order to imagine collectively different scenarios to initiate new dynamics in the neighbourhood. The aim of the workshop is to try to stimulate the emergence of new services, new ways of investing spaces and new ways of inhabiting and living in them. The keys to get a district moving and to bring life to its streets for cities and towns are in their human capital, creativity and design.
“Crossroads 2015” will show how design tools – such as prototyping, script and visualisation – can help to invent new urbanistic tools where creativity is at the service of innovation in the territories. It will create also a dynamic network between the members of Human Cities and the UNESCO Creative Cities of Design network invited by Saint-Etienne, by a collaborative experimentation.
“Crossroads 2015” is also the gathering moment of the 2 main international workshops of Biennale International Design Saint-Etienne : “Human Cities” and “All Champions-People Olympics”: 2 initiatives focused on collaborative experimentation to make an active, creative, vivid city.
This conference is part of the initiative of Human Cities 2014-2018 program. Organized by the Cité du design, this conference was about the workshop and the idea of Crossroads 2015, part of the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne 2015 program. It took place on 17 March 2015 from 5 PM until 8 PM at Cité du design , and gathered the international workshops “Human Cities” and “All Champions-People Olympics”, and their relative participants from international networks : Human Cities, UNESCO Creative Cities Network, Living Labs, People Olympics.
Keynote speaker Charles Landry, researcher, inventor of the “Creative Cities” concept was invited to give his expert point of you on these initiatives using design to make a more active and human creative cities. European Commission expert Marc-Hector Vanderhaegen introduced the Creative Europe Program, framework of Human Cities 2014-2018 project.
The Cité du Design will lead various experimentations on Saint-Etienne territory in 2015-2017. One of the topics is to tackle the retails and street level spaces. In the contemporary urban context, the classic city, with its town center and its suburbs, disappears to make way for a world of networks, connections, of multi- polarity. The flows of traffic – carried by land, sea or digital routes, take over from places. These structural evolutions are impacting both people and spaces , like the shops in the city centres. How to invent innovative proposals to activate these spaces and scales ?
The first action of C.H.O.S.E is to launch a call for initiatives for local actors in order to establish an experimental program in 2016 – 2017 (see calendar below)
The result of this call for initiatives was very rich: 4 local actors came forward and presented their initiatives.
Recent updates:
We have met these four groups of actors collectively and individually which was the opportunity for them to present themselves, their initiatives but also their visions and goals.
During those meetings we discussed the details of their initiatives and we debated and reflected upon ways to mix their know-hows and cross-disciplinary approaches to challenge the urban transformations in Saint-Etienne!
Our next meeting is planned for the end of April and the goal is to see how exactly the experimentations will take place!
