Locations : Cité du design – EXPO 10
Human Cities Office – 8 rue de la République
Ici bientôt – 40 rue de la Résistance – rue de la Ville
Hypermatière – 50 rue Neyron
Official Opening : 14th March 2017 at 18.30
Curatorship: Cité du design – International Affairs department and Design Management for local authorities department
Exhibition design : Jean-Sébastien Poncet and .CORP
Occupying vacant buildings to test new ways of working or learning; federating the makers community to contribute to the development of a district; activating and improving the quality of public spaces involving cultural and associative stakeholders, users, residents etc. A non exhaustive list of experiences made by the 12 partners(1) of the European project européen Human Cities_ Challenging the City Scale led by Cité du design Saint-Etienne from 2014 to 2018 within the framework of the du programme Creative Europe/Culture of the European Union.
Human Cities questions the scales and the co-creation of the city. Saint-Etienne has got a distinctive feature of a creative laboratory, where hands-on stakeholders develop methodologies and actions with the communities to transform the city. The Cité du design has created C.H.O.S.E (Collective Humancitizens Office of St Étienne Experimentations), a tool to stimulate and connect these local energies and creative forces, with the support of the City of Saint-Etienne and EPASE.
Within this framework, three multidisciplinary groups proposed their initiatives:
– Ici bientôt (Coming Soon) : a revitalization of vacant and active shops in rue de la Ville street, Beaubrun district. Partners : CREFAD Loire ; Carton plein ; Typotopy ; le Centre social du Babet ; le CIDFF de la Loire ; Collectif X ; Zoomacom ; l’Ecole de l’Oralité ; la Louce …and other structures joining the project in progress
– Hypermatière : co-creation activities with the residents of Crêt de Roch district to enrich the renovation project of rue Neyron. Partners : Captain Ludd ; l’Amicale laïque du Crêt de Roch ; Rues du Développement Durable ; l’association de valorisation des déchets ; Magalie Rastello ; Esther Yai Acosta Valois ; Mathieu Benoit Gonin.
– Playing with the city perceptions’ scales and surprizing point of views : a project by the Laboratory “Images, Récits, Documents” of Saint-etienne Higher School of Art and Design
The experimentations developed by international and local partners are presented in the exhibition-lab Human Cities on the Manufacture site and in a dedicated space rue de la République. An urban circuit links these sites and the initiatives led by Saint-Etienne multidisciplinary groups in the Crêt de Roch and Beaubrun neighbourhoods.
(1) European Partners : Cité du design Saint-Étienne [FR] ; Politecnico di Milano, Milan [IT] ; Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia, Ljubljana [SI] ; Clear Village, London[UK] ; Zamek Cieszyn [PL] ; Design Week Belgrade [RS] ; Pro Materia, Bruxelles [BE] ; Aalto University, Helsinki [FI] ; FH Joanneum, Graz [AT] ; Association of Estonian Designers, Tallinn [EST] ; BEAZ/Bilbao-Bizkaia Design&Creativity Council, Bilbao [ES] ; CultureLab, Bruxelles [BE].
