showing one step further
of an instrinsically
bottom-up construction of the
territory by an assembling
of meaningful micro-project
synergies.
anticipate with them possible blockers and play a role of barrier remover. Second dimension of the public enabling framework is to provide the conditions to facilitate the development and consolidation of the social dynamics. Here comes requirement for measured forms of subsidies, technical help of experts and professionals (including urban planners and designers that may play key roles as enablers, interpreters and amplifiers) and support for permanent assessment and reorientation of this open governance.
4. DEVELOPMENT AGENCY LABS
The first experimentation between Paris-Saclay and ENSCI Paris DESIS Lab will further develop to investigate and experiment how user-centred design approach may transform territorial planning organizing an immersion session of students from different disciplines at the EPPS development agency. The aim is to work with urban planners and co-develop new integrated methods based on the previous experiences. One of the scenarios developed by the students proposes a vision for an urban and economic development agency as a public innovation place switching from consultation to co-creation through the generation of DEVELOPMENT AGENCYlabs putting the social architecture first and channelling then the appropriate urban infrastructure.
This scenario is reproduced here as it applies the ideas developed before and proposes a conclusion in form of a vision before drawing design and policy implications.
From the launch of Paris-Saclay Cluster Campus, major issues were clearly to kick-off the social dimensions of the project and generate a high quality of life between the mix of populations living there.
The Paris-Saclay Development Agency in charge of coordination of urban planning for the whole Campus decided to challenge its own work and innovation processes to better meet the social side of the project.
The willingness to pass from consultation to co-creation made them generate the first DEVELOPMENT AGENCYlabs: these new sub-structures worked as temporary project groups bringing together generally 3 to 5 different stakeholders to coproduce an experimentation. For instance the first Learning Center around Politecnique metro station trigger appetite for more of such experimental third places: ‘La Villette-Saclay’ was the first initiated by the Sciences and Industry Museum, NanoInnov and Ile-de-France Region Direction of Education. Another started in partnership with Minatech Arts & Science Atelier, CEA and Cartier Foundation. Each of these DEVELOPMENT AGENCYlabs real scale experimentations were scheduled for 6 months after which an assessment of the results is made by the partners and the experimentation is transformed into a real project or stopped.
Other third places were generated around logging:
Accord Hotel, Booking.com and Gites de France explored the concept of diffused hotels rooms at people’s home; Steelcase Strafor, the Hub and Cafés Costes implement the very French ‘Bistr’offices’, etc.
With DEVELOPMENT AGENCYlabs, the Development Agency turned planning upside down putting the social architecture first and channelling then the appropriate infrastructure.
IMPLICATIONS FOR:
DESIGN PRACTICE
The experiences conducted by design approaches to urban planning revealed some promising directions of development:
• Intensification of in-depth and long immersions into the territorial social fabric beyond classical user-centred approaches and tools;
• Co-creation as enabling and supporting innovation by the population and stakeholders beyond limited involvement of creating with them;
• Forward looking activities based on bottom-up generation of macro-visions from the aggregation of multiple single micro-projects;
• Support the deliberation and public participation with explicit representations of the future visions to be debated.
DESIGN EDUCATION
The experiences conducted pointed a series of open questions for design schools:
• The value of the design approaches and tools for territorial development and the innovation in local policy making;
• The richness of considering more interdisciplinary experiences (here between design, urban planning and policy making) as a way to question and explore the potential developments of design education;
• The field work and immersive approaches that question the schools as physical places in vitro compared to education in vivo;
DESIGN POLICY
Both experiences of collaborative constructions of future visions for territorial development outline the perspective of an open governance calling for new roles and attitudes for policy making supported by design approaches:
• Giving visibility to local potentials mapping micro informal promising initiatives embedded or emerging from the territory;
• Ensuring these potentials are developed in tangible visions meaningful for the population and that their future implications is expressed in an explicit way for all stakeholders;
• Making sure that these visions are considered in the stakeholder debate for their innovation capabilities within future challenges;
• Developing public authorities capability to backup local bottom-up initiatives and provide the appropriate environment for self-territorial development.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to the institutions of Paris-Saclay Campus and Saint-Gilles Liège who welcome the students and support their work:
• CAPS territory and services development
• CEA Laboratories
• Fondaterra Foundation
• ID Campus / HEC-ULg
• Joncherette citizen association
• Polytechnique High School
• REcentre
• Reciprocity Design Liège
• REEDS Laboratories
• Scientipole
• Thales group
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
François Jégou, Director of the Brussels-based sustainable innovation lab Strategic Design Scenarios, has 20 years of experience in strategic design, participative scenario building and new product-services system definition.
He is active in various fields and research projects from investigating Creative Communities for Sustainable Living in China, India, Brazil and Africa with UNEP to European research project, diffusing social innovation to support sustainable transition, exploring the future of innovation or building a deliberative platform on nanotech.
François is scientific director of the public innovation lab 27e Région in France and the co-ordinator of the DESIS Europe, the European branch of the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability network. He teaches strategic design at ENSCI Les Ateliers Paris, La Cambre, Brussels and Politecnico, Milan.
He organizes the Sustainable Everyday Project platform. This collection of scenarios and cases of social innovations asked: what might everyday life be like in a sustainable society? How would we eat food, move, work, and take care of each other?. Last book on the subject: Collaborative Services, Social innovations and design for sustainability.
Clara Deletraz s Development Economic Strategist at Paris Saclay Agency. She started as an urban developer and then implemented the Economic Development department 2 years ago. She is responsible now for designing innovation and development strategies for Paris Saclay as a territory, cooperating with universities, start-ups, R&D centres and local authorities in a public/private approach. She is more specifically in charge of marketing and branding strategy to attract international businesses. She also develops projects to generate innovation and cooperation: collaborative spaces (learning centre, fab lab, incubator) from the initial concept to early implementation stages and partnerships with business networks, think tanks or revues.
Giovanna Massoni is an Italian design consultant living in Brussels. She regularly collaborates with Belgian and international organisations, aiming to promote emerging design scenarios through social and ethical content.
Amongst her most significant assignments to date: Addict Creative Lab’s researcher and editor – a.o.: Universal House (design and world cultures) and In.tangible.scapes (design and emerging technologies); for Belgian institutions, she created a ‘federal’ label for the promotion of design in the frame of international events; for the DesignSingapore Council she has worked as project manager for Italy. In 2009 and 2011, she has been consultant for the European Economic and Social Committee sustainable design award.
Amongst her major projects: “La Belgique des autres”, 13 Belgian designers of foreign origins, International Design Biennial Saint-Etienne; “Fighting the Box - 20 stories behind the products”, co-curated with Dieter Van Den Storm, Centrale électrique, Brussels; “Multiple Plan – Design Crossroads in Belgium”, co-curated with Alok Nandi, red dot design museum, Essen; “Perspectives”, Triennale di Milano.
Since September 2011, she has been appointed by Wallonie Design as artistic director of RECIPROCITY design liege (former International Design Biennial), a new platform of design for social innovation. The 2012 edition included
“Welcome to Saint-Gilles”, an exhibition on the above mentioned research outcomes.
Jean-Baptiste Roussat is a geographer and geopolitician, currently responsible for the institutional relations of the Etablissement public Paris-Saclay. After witnessing negotiations between First Nations and federal administration in Canada, he broadened his scope of interest to the worldwide emergence of new social, economical, political and cultural patterns, and their multi-scale influence on policy-making.
Marie Coirié is an independant designer specialized in service design and social innovation in collective services : environment, mobility, collaborative systems and public health. She has a degree in industrial design from l’ENSCI/
Les Ateliers in Paris.
She is mostly involved in fieldwork for public administrations (regions, department, cities), health administrations (university hospitals, clinics) and private companies (Renault, Alcatel/Lucent). Co-design and prototyping are some of the tools she usually develops, working in close relation with communities involved, stakeholders, and potential users.
She teaches as designer-assistant professor in ENSCI/Les Ateliers and focuses on developing creative
methodologies for designers to work efficiently with other disciplines (sociology, urban planning, architecture, etc.).
REFERENCES
Augé, M., (1992), Non-Lieux, Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité; trs. as Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Editions du Seuil, Paris;
Godet, M., (1985), Prospective et planification stratégique, CPE Economica, Paris;
Jégou, F., (2010) “Social innovations and regional acupuncture towards sustainability” in Zhuangshi, Beijing.
Jégou, F. and Manzini, E., 2008. Collaborative Services, Social Innovation and Design for Sustainability with essay by Bala, P., Cagnin, C., Cipolla, C., Green, J., van der Horst, T., de Leeuw, B., Luiten, H. Marras, I., Meroni, A., Rocchi, S., Strandbakken, P., Stø, E., Thakara, J., Un, S., Vadovics, E. Warnke, P. and Zacarias A. Edizioni Poli.design, Milan.
Jégou, F., Verganti R., Marchesi A., Simonelli G. D’ell Era C., (2006). Design Driven Toolbox, A handbook to support companies in radical product innovation, Clac, Milano.
For more information about the DESIS Network, visit
WWW.DESIS-NETWORK.ORG
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PARTICIPANT UNIVERSITIES/DESIS LABS CLUSTER COORDINATION:
Aalto University (Finland), Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design (UK), Designmatters at Art Center College of Design (US), ENSCI-Les Ateliers (France), Institute without Borders, George Brown College (Canada), MAD Faculty (Belgium), Malmö University (Sweden), Parsons the New School for Design (US), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University (US)
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