Habiter le grand paysage — La revitalisation de centres-bourgs lozériens — La Galerie d’Architecture — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: July 3 → 18, 2018

The “Living in the larger landscape” exhibition presents work created by undergraduate students at the National School of Architecture in Montpellier (ENSAM) on the theme of “revitalizing village centers” in the Lozère region.

ENSAM has been developing solutions to this issue for a number of years, working in conjunction with municipal authorities.

For each of the last two years, Jérôme Lafond, a professor at ENSAM, has asked his students to work on three villages in Lozère, in partnership¹ with local councils, associations and organizations.

The subject of “revitalizing village centers” is the “pre-text” for an enriched teaching approach that combines reflections on different scales, where Territory impacts Architecture, and where Architecture helps connect People with the “Larger Landscape”. This approach blends the concepts of critical regionalism² and local self-sustainable development³ with new approaches to rural urbanism and the need to take into account environmental issues and the sustainability of territorial resources.

The projects included in the exhibition lie within the Margeride and Cévennes areas, a landscape of plateaus, valleys and hills in which limestone, schist and granite have molded the built environment. The schemes presented were designed for the villages of Saint Denis en Margeride, Estables, Badaroux, Ispagnac, Barre des Cévennes and Saint Martin de Lansuscle.

¹ Partners: municipal councils, local people and CAUE 48, with the Association Territoriale Causses Cévennes’ new residents service, Terres de Vie en Lozère, the Cévennes National Park and government departments.

² Critical Regionalism, Kenneth Frampton, Alvar Aalto, Jorm Utzon.

³ “La Biorégion Urbaine” and “Projet Local”, Alberto Magnaghi.