THE CITY: AN URBAN THEATRE
Spring 2011

Approach :
We worked on the urban perception by observing and interviewing inhabitants from the neighbourhood.
Based on these results, we have created new tools that allowed us to illustrate the way of life and the feelings of the people living in Ivry-Sur-Seine.

We named those tools: “coupograms “ (=sectiograms)and “cartograms”.
The principle is simple: they are maps and sections using anamorphosis. The whole city is distorted
according to each subject’s perception and experience of its urban environment.

Project :
Establish a participatory process to recreate cultural dynamism including the inhabitants in the
heart of the project, as actors.
Two main actions:
- Creation of housing on some sheds’ roofs to bring back inhabitants in this heterogeneous area
- To develop the cultural field through several interventions at different scales:
1)a mobile and temporary workshop, moving through the area, in order to show people how to build new urban furniture,
“handmade”
2)a permanent workshop, after the itinerant workshop, to continue to create urban furniture in the
neighborhood, this building will also be place between architects, government,
carpenters, ect ... and residents,
3)a fun scaffolding to expose the work of these residents to renew their city
4)and finally by a park designed and managed by the residents

We decided to build one module of the traveling workshop, at scale 1, which goes through the neighborhood to re-imagine and re-create the urban space with the inhabitants.
Time of construction : one weekend (day+night)