Alexandre Chemetoff in the IFV: The challenge of the city

Alexandre Chemetoff is a french architect, urban planner and landscape artist, author of the plan for the urban regeneration of the island of Nantes.

 

To readapt an obsolete industrial area in the middle of the Loira river into city, that was the aim of the plan for the island of Nantes. An original plan for its length (9 months), its scale or its social programme.

The main challenge was to respect the memory of the places, to promote public space by the rivershore and to activate the citizen participation, so they developed the plan in collaboration with a public corporation, the SAMOA (Société d'Aménagement de la Métropole Ouest Atlantique).

As a result, today the district has 18000 inhabitants, 10000 housing units, 16000 jobs and several equipments, such as schools, faculties, and cultural spaces, most of them in former industrial buildings.

"We wanted to find a dialogue with the exisiting, and we found ourshelves making archeology of the future" 

Alexandre Chemetoff

- Île de Nantes project webpage

http://www.iledenantes.com/

- SAMOA web (Société d'Aménagement de la Métropole Ouest Atlantique)

http://www.samoa-nantes.fr

http://www.samoa-nantes.fr/fr/pdf/iledenantes2010.zip (PDF)

http://www.samoa-nantes.fr/fr/pdf/dvt_durable08.pdf (PDF)

- The project in the Nantes municipality webpage

http://www.nantes.fr/site/nantesfr/grand-projet-ile-de-nantes

- Île de Nantes in Wikipedia

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8Ele_de_Nantes

Summary 18th April 2012

Basically the decission-making we proceeded yerterday, was created form the ideas that Manuel Cerdá gave Paula about his presentation

            His presentation: 4:05 -5.00 pm

 The discourse stems from the concept of dividing wall, which lacks in the japanese culture.

           Our presentation: 4.00-4.05 pm

We would like to finish in the same way he begins. It could be a good idea to end up with a zoom in of the Tokio city map, as close as possible so as to see the features of the city configuration, specially the dividing wall one. (If you look closer you will perceive the empty space between buildings)


Sara has found a special music for the event. Hopefully we can hear it next monday. It is extracted from the o.s. from the Shichinin no samurai film (Seven Samurai) directed by Akira Kurosawa

 


         We will draw three zooms in three differents ways of representation

_1st zoom: JAPAN
        _Displayed in the projection as an eye's bird image
        _Drawn (analitically) in the blackboard
        _Drawn in an artistic way (synthesized) in the table and transmitted to the projector by camera

2nd zoom: TOKIO CONECTIONS
       _Projection
        _(analitically) blackboard
        _(synthesized) projector by camera

A video from 2nd zoom to 3rd would be ideal to explain completely where the next area is

3rd zoom: TOKIO DISTRICT
       _Projection
        _(analitically) blackboard
        _(synthesized) projector by camera
 

TS_27.03.12

SUMMARY of the last session:

_ presentation for Japanese cultural week.

We have decided the 3 different steps in order to show our aim: be able to have an idea about Japan and Tokyo are/work.

o Japan_scale. We decided make the 8 o’clock scheme in order to explain the most important part of the geography. The main point will be Tokyo in the top of the bay.

o Tokio_natural_system_scale. We need to show how are organized the rivers, lakes, mountains, bays and valleys, in order to understand the creation of the old cities. It is important introduce “hitos” like names, words, or emblematic places to help the audience keeping remember how is made every picture.

o Tokio_city_centre_scale. We focussed the picture in the imperial palace, and try to speak what you are going to find in Tokyo when you visit it. We draw the 3 circles and 7 axis scheme, showing the relation of the city with the bay, and putting emblematic (cultural, architectonic, natural, historical, technological) points on the picture.

We concluded the last session closing the performance-presentation with those 3 scheme/pictures.

TS_24.03.12

SUMMARY of the last session.

The aim of the session was develop the way and the skills those we can count on. And develop a second scheme of the presentation (apart of Japan_scale)

o The first part of the session was based on the skills for representing our presentation

___We found the Japanese paintbrush as a good instrument to define the line-drawing parts and the sponge+ gouache to fill solids. The finger-pointing is going to be used for marking.

o The second part of the session was based on the development of the second scheme.

___We took a metropolitan scale, between the two main rivers of the city and the bay, showing the city centre.

___We found a system of representing the map, after draw the bay, and the 2 main rivers, we marked the “imperial palace”, which is going to be the middle point from we made 3 concentric circles and we also crossed 4 cardinal axes, and 3 diagonal ones, which are the communications to the rest of the country.

___We realized that we need and intermediate scale to show the importance for the city the relation with the mountains and the sea.

___We realized that we need fixed some emblematic points to make easier and more interesting the representation.

___We thought to make some stickers or something similar to mark these points with something on the board/on the picture.

Japanese_scale, trying different skills

metropolitan scale

during the session

TS_21.03.12

SUMMARY

the last session was resolved by this scheme:

__ was projected the global image of Japan and we tried to define in a quickly way the country (basically the 4 principal islands) after a short explication of the main cities/ councils/ metropolitan areas/ .../ Right now, we will keep thinking in this way and develop some skills in other to show more with less.

__ the second image was from the metropolitan area of Tokyo. we decided put other bigger scaled to show the context of the bay.

__ need to research the geomorphology of the area (rivers, mountains, valleys, beaches...)

need to research about the historical develop of the city (non-city)

need to research about drawing and graphics resources to present it

the next session is not programmed yet.

see you, keep safe and best wishes.

***some mental notes: scheme of 8.00 o'clock / Tokyo as a middle point of the circle - Japan flag / Tokyo as a middle reference point of the archipelago / 24x26km / south bays-south cities / performing the presentation/ ...
***some images are enclosed

An interesting communication by Larry Lessig

Este material pertenece a http://www.ted.com/

Comments to Lucia's post

Carmen, Alfonso y Paula want to transmit the following comments:

_Same people, same information to be transmitted/shared [e.g. PFC vs class session], may require different ways of communication [vertical or horizontal] depending on the moment and the circumstances. Therefore different skills and pieces of information [size, format, media, style, discourse…]

_Vertical and horizontal communication follow different patterns and require different skills. We conclude that we must be fluent in both of them as architects in practice.

_Could we say that the real horizontal communication is only reached once the participants control the vertical communication skills?

_Vertical communication usually implies more prejudices and a one way information exchange, but on the contrary, it is expected to be efficient. There is more transference of information than exchange or interaction. Due to this, it has to be more precise and concise.

_Horizontal communication usually appeals to our common baggage easier than the vertical one. We usually feel more relaxed and confident but it is more open, but we may also appear weaker.

_So, are we more fragile in vertical or horizontal communication?