Festival des Architectures Vives 2018: Call for Submissions

The Festival des Architectures Vives is an architectural course dedicated to a wide audience that allows to discover or (re) discover emblematic sites in Montpellier thanks to ephemeral projects created by young architects teams. 

The FAV aims to highlight the work of young architects who propose, create and experiment and for whom the installations are usually the first built project. The idea is to create a discussion between this ephemeral architecture and a wide audience in order to valorize the heritage. Each year, the Festival is visited by a large public and the 2017 edition received 16 000 visitors.  For the 13th edition, the Festival des Architectures Vives in Montpellier will take place from 12 to 17 June, 2018 under the thematic SENcity.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Festival des Architectures Vives 2018

  —To realize 10 interventions for the FAV Montpellier

Festival Presentation

The Festival des Architectures Vives wishes to answer the evolution of architectural practice which, by integrating all the domains related to its culture, does not hesitate to assert itself through realizations. The “Architectures Vives” are short-lived and evolutionary by nature; each time localized, registered in a short temporality and thought for a specific place.

Like augmented reality, they add, transform, reveal a forgotten and invisible space or on the contrary too exposed. Respectful of their environment, they change it in an inhabited environment where the past, the present and even the future are one. The “Architectures Vives” create an environment where the imagination of each and everyone is possible. So, they have a sense of humor, as much as humility. Refusing the unchanging, during the Festival they question our everyday environment. Targeting a large audience, they offer a sensory adventure, an unconventional glance and position themselves as a discoverer. The “Architectures Vives” are objects of desire, envy and simply wish to find the sense of the pleasure of the place, the city, to offer the sensitive and the tactile, to reposition the Man in the heart of the architecture.

For this 13th edition of the Festival des Architectures Vives in Montpellier, the chosen sites are in adequacy with this historical city. One of its treasures is the presence in the heart of the city of several hôtels particuliers. Today, Montpellier has more than seventy of them. Lots of these private mansions and courtyards are not open to the visitors.

In their history the courtyards that are half-private and half-public, have had many purposes, from the place of representation, distribution hall, but today it remains uninhabited. Lacking function, they appear as ordinary spaces that are just crossed to reach a private apartment. Forgotten, because they are inaccessible, or forgotten because they are inappropriate, these courtyards disappear little by little from the common knowledge, even from the collective imagination. They become forgotten spaces but they nevertheless maintain their own specificity, playing between shadow and light, offering a possibility to glorify these places with few things. Thus contemporary architecture will enjoy revealing and waking up sleepy sites.

The FAV 2018 Thematic 

KAAU

The Knowledge Alliance for Advanced Urbanism (KAAU) project—SENcity is part of a European research program called “Knowledge Alliances”. It aims to activate the knowledge triangle defined by Europe, involving the teaching, research and business sectors. The KAAU consortium is composed of three universities, IAAC Barcelona—Spain / UNIGE Genoa—Italy / ENSA Montpellier / 6 companies working on the management of computer data, the realization of applications to support the management of the city, tools for analysis and optimization of geo-localized data, and finally on connected urban furniture: INatlas—Spain / MCRIT—Spain / Technilums France / Useful Simple Projects—Great Britain / DARTS—Italy / Santa & Cole—Spain.  Also involved are 2 cultural social actors, ACTAR, Barcelona and the Festival des Architectures Vives in Montpellier working on cultural dissemination. This consortium is working on the impact of new technologies on the city, town planning, architecture, both in its design, practice and even governance. Thus the FAV 2018 edition will bring the closing event of the KAAU and will be in its field of research through the SENcity theme. www.ka-au.net

SENcity
SENcity questions the massive contribution of new technologies and their impact on the city by taking into account the new modes of management, governance and constitution of contemporary cities. 

Cities use more and more technologies to make them more efficient in energy management, as well as in transport, but also in order to offer better services to citizens. They become living laboratories where it is possible to experiment with new devices. The increasing availability of data related to the implementation of multiple sensors and flows creates new opportunities; not only in monitoring but also in the way we draw, think and live in the city. Thus what is today called “smart city” seems to be a necessary reflection to regulate the city of tomorrow. But the fundamental question is not to make cities “smart,” because this would mean that some are not, but rather to raise the level of exchange, networks, energy efficiency, access to culture, health and education for all. The city is smart not because it is technological, it is intelligent if it is able to increase its level of services to citizens and re-examine the modalities of its own governance, thanks to new technologies. Through this it is the question of Living Together in a contemporary metropolis that is posed. To do this, we must experiment with innovative urban devices. The stakes of the public space, spaces of meetings are at the heart of the concerns. It becomes more sensitive, more humane and more conducive to exchanges and encounters. The “big data” thus comes to the service of the inhabitants and citizens, repositioning the man at the center of the subject. 

Thus SENcity is indeed this city which plays between the SENsor (sensors) of the city to constitute a city SENsible. As an additional layer, certainly informative, it opens fields for a new sensitivity. It is a question of capturing the challenges of the contemporary city which has become a real laboratory and of imagining ephemeral installations capable of exploring these notions. Real courtyards, the courtyards of mansions in which ephemeral installations take place offer a framework conducive to experiments. Again, the festival will aim to demonstrate that ephemeral architectures, by modifying the perception and the uses of the courses, are capable of awakening a sleeping heritage and reinscribing it in its contemporaneity. This edition of the Festival des Architectures Vives will offer informative and interactive installations open to citizens and demonstrating innovation.

For more information: 
festivaldesarchitecturesvives.com/Candidature-2018