OPEN DESIGN ACADEMY – the potentials of creative educational environments in Paris
The design studio aims to research and develop an OPEN DESIGN ACADEMY in order to demonstrate the potential of architecture for interdisciplinary creative learning. A site in Paris will serve as a testing ground to facilitate a change in thinking in regard to the typology of an open educational institution for art, architecture and design.
The world is changing rapidly and the design profession is transforming with it. The design and design education should address perpetually changing environmental, social, technological and economical realities. The environment of design education should therefore provide a suitable framework for the multitude of creative responses.
Furthermore, the austere specialisation of creative professions has drastically limited conceptual thinking and design education during the last decades. The OPEN DESIGN ACADEMY aims to return to understanding design as a process of thinking similar to the mid-Century approach promoted by Milanese architect Ernesto Rogers - who sees the role of the designer stretching "from the spoon to the city" - articulating the desire and devotion of many architects and designers to cross scales and disciplines.
The programme of OPEN DESIGN ACADEMY aims to dissolve the disciplinary boundaries of architecture, art and design and therefore calls for architectural proposals with the capacity to evoke specific spatial experience, stimulate participation and spark creative interaction among the variety of users.
The research of existing historical and contemporary art and design institutions will set the grounds to perceive and understand how creative educational environments evolve and interact not only with the creative life of students and faculty members, but also with the wider public. This will provide guidance in order to propose an improved typology for an interdisciplinary educational institution for art, architecture and design that weaves into the public fabric.
Intensive design and research experimentation will merge the explicit concern of spatial organisation and materiality with the socio-political potential of its architectural form through a large scale city-like educational structure transcending the notion of building on a currently empty site close to the notorious rim of Paris – Périphérique.
The initial research of existing university facilities dedicated to creativity will be expanded with a series of excursions, including Vienna, Paris and finally Nantes. These experiential explorations will focus on atmospheres for creativity with the potential to challenge the architectural typology of the design academy.
