Exploration (22 h)

Tell the story of a place, a territory, through film.
Learn to sharpen your eye for a site.
Introduction to shooting and editing.
Learn the basics of Da Vinci Resolve software.
Group production of a 3-minute short film set in the inner ring road.

Continuous assessment 50%, final exam 50%
-Producing a 3-minute short film in the form of a fiction, experimental, essay or documentary…

Photographic scouting, archive research, storyboarding, synopsis, note of intent, directing, editing.

The Petite Ceinture (an old disused railway line that runs around Paris) has inspired a number of filmmakers and is featured in several films, often for its urbex, wild or poetic side.

Creation of a booklet for the memoir.

Series of exercises and final work.
Participation and attendance.

Knowledge of InDesign page layout software (or equivalent) recommended
Course language French

A bibliography will be circulated during the course of the year.

This course follows on from the undergraduate courses on ambience, which focused mainly on the technical tools for achieving theoretical comfort (light, sound and heat). It will attempt to provide some answers to the more complex question of whether these architectural solutions are always sufficient to guarantee not only physical comfort, but also emotional and psychological well-being.
The question of ambience in architecture transcends traditional disciplines, as it encompasses a multitude of interconnected factors. It is not limited to the physical or technical aspects of a place, but also involves social, cultural and psychological elements. The approach to ambience should be interdisciplinary, bringing together contributions from the human and social sciences, architectural and urban design sciences, and applied physical sciences (acoustics, lighting, thermics, etc.). It’s an open, porous field of research, enriched not only by modeling and physical characterization of the sensory, but also by research in aesthetics and cognitive sciences. The challenge of this course is to propose a hybrid approach that embraces these different aspects.

Continuous assessment (50%) + Final assessment (50%)

Production of a booklet (format and number of pages to be determined according to the student’s project).

Knowledge of page layout software (InDesign) recommended
Course language: French

References (non-exhaustive list) : Marcel Broodthaers, Yves Klein, Ed Ruscha, Hans Peter Feldmann, Allan Kaprow, LE CORBUSIER, Olafur Eliasson Thibault Brunet, S,M,L,XL published by Rem Koolhaas’ agency…

To present certain theoretical discourses and debates in architecture, but also from outside – through various fields such as philosophy, science, economics, art, etc. Encourage students to think more broadly about architecture and the city in the light of social, political, scientific and technological developments in a resolutely contemporary context. To help them reflect on the relationship between theory and practice – in other words, the ability to make sense. To question themselves and move towards inventiveness.
Students will develop a critical eye for the discipline and its discourse. Develop their research, representation, oral and written expression skills. This course also aims to enable students to communicate in a foreign language (English).

This course will address theoretical discourses and debates in architecture, but also from outside the field-through various disciplines such as philosophy, science, economics, art, etc. Students will be encouraged to think more broadly about architecture and the city in light of social, political, and technological developments in terms of contemporary contexts. It will also provide an environment to reflect on the relationship between theory and practice-that is, the ability to convey meaning. It will encourage self-reflection, inventiveness and experimentation.
This course is taught in English. You require an above-average level of English, curiosity, creativity and motivation.

Committed class attendance and participation; follow-up and discussion of readings. Personal analytical and critical research project on a chosen theme and case studies, their political, urban and cultural context. Research and critical analysis project presented in lecture and illustrated text versions. This written and graphic analysis will be the subject of a round table and/or a publication of the students’ work for the ENSAPLV community.

This course is taught in English.

Critical mapping. Graphic analysis and critical mapping support students in the formulation of their personal projects, which are presented both graphically and orally.

Graphic analysis and critical mapping exercises help students formulate their personal projects, which are presented in graphically and presented in class.

Daniel Abramson, Obsolescence: An Architectural History (University of Chicago, 2016)
Chandler Ahrens and Aaron Sprecher, eds, Instabilities and Potentialities: Notes on the Nature of Knowledge in Digital Architecture (Routledge, 2019).
Zeynep Çelik Alexander and John May, eds, Design Technics: Archaeologies of Architectural Practice (Minnesota, 2020)
N. Axel, B. Colomina, N. Hirsch, A. Vidokle and M. Wigley, eds, Superhumanity: Design of the Self (e-flux/Minnesota, 2018)
Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Duke, 2010)
Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us (Verso, 2016)
Rosi Braidotti, Posthuman Knowledge (Polity, 2019)
Benjamin Bratton, The Revenge of the Real (Verso, 2022)
James Bridle, New Dark Age (Verso, 2018)
James Bridle, Ways of Being, Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for Planetary Intelligence (Penguin, 2023)
Mario Carpo, The Second Digital Turn (MIT, 2017)
Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, eds, Are we human? (Lars Müller, 2016)
Amica Dall, Material Reform: Building for a Post-Carbon Future (MACK, 2024)
W. Davidts, S. Holden and A. Paine, eds, Trading between Architecture and Art (Valiz, 2019)
Peggy Deamer, ed, The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design (Bloomsbury, 2015)
Peggy Deamer, Labor and Architecture (Routledge, 2020)
T.J. Demos, Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics and Justice-to-Come (Sternberg, 2023)
Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (Verso, 2014)
Keller Easterling, Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World (Verso, 2018)
Hélène Frichot, Creative Ecologies: Theorizing the Practice of Architecture (Bloomsbury, 2018)
Catherine Geel and Clément Gaillard, eds, Extended French Theory and The Design Field…On Nature and Ecology (T and P, 2019)
Andrew Goodhouse, ed, When is the Digital in Architecture? (Sternberg, 2017)
Ariane Lourie Harrison, Architectural Theories of the Environment: Posthuman Territory (Routledge, 2013)
Tim Ingold, Making (Routledge, 2013)
Tahl Kaminer, The Efficacy of Architecture: Political Contestation and Agency (Routledge, 2017)
Nadir Lahiji, ed, Architecture Against the Post-Political (Routledge, 2014)
Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, ed, On Architecture and the Greenfield (Hatje Cantz, 2024)
Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, ed, On Architecture and Greenwashing (Hatje Cantz, 2024)
Pierre-Michel Menger, The Economics of Creativity (Harvard, 2014)
Alexandra Midal, Design by Accident: For a New History of Design (Sternberg, 2019)
Miguel Paredes Maldonado, Ugly, Useless and Unstable Architectures (Routledge, 2019)
Markus Miessen, Crossbenching: Toward Participation as Critical Spatial Practice (Sternberg, 2016)
Doina Petrescu and Kim Trogal, eds, The Social (Re)Production of Architecture (Routledge, 2017)
Monica Ponce de Leon, Authorship (Princeton, 2020)
Carlo Ratti, Open Source Architecture (Thames and Hudson, 2015)
Peg Rawes, ed. in Relational Architectural Ecologies (Routledge, 2013)
M. Schalk, T. Kristiansson and R. Mazé, Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice (AADR, 2017).
Space Caviar, ed, Non-Extractive Architecture (Sternberg, 2021)
Albena Yaneva, Five Ways to Make Architecture Political: An Introduction to the Politics of Design Practice (Bloomsbury, 2017)

“To listen well is almost to respond” (Marivaux).

This course is an invitation to listen to civil society. It aims to “learn how to listen better” to social demand, particularly as expressed in the world of associations. This posture is intended to prepare you to respond to this social demand in terms of architecture in line with current issues. The importance of attentive listening is the foundation of an appropriate response.

As the teaching team is multi-disciplinary, assessment will be based on the intersection of knowledge relating to architecture, urban planning, pedagogy and sociology.

Expectations and evaluation criteria are based on two considerations:
– the active involvement of each student throughout the semester in fieldwork and interaction with an association; – the contribution to the development of a collective production, the comic strip, and to the quality of this object which will be transmitted to the associations of the Goutte d’Or.

This assessment is based on continuous assessment (active attendance) 50%, and the production of a final collective work (comic strip to be sent to associations) 50%.

The language of instruction is French. Other languages may be used in the exchange: Spanish, English and Italian.

The expected work is based on two stages:

1) Listening carefully to the associative world will be achieved by:
conducting INTERVIEWS: collecting life stories about the associative world in the Goutte d’Or through selected people who have been marked, shaped or transformed by an association; 
compiling a PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION: identifying and capturing the urban territories that bear the life stories.

2) the construction of an illustrated narrative will be carried out by:
– a STORY BOARD: based on the transcriptions of the interviews combined with the photographic documentation, the story board outlines the general framework of the narrative and its graphic layout; 
– a DRAWING BOARD: the layout of a socio-territorial narrative emerging from the interviews and offering a viewpoint combining life trajectories and urban territories.

Selected references to comics featuring urban narratives:
“UN COIN D’HUMANITÉ”, by Kek (scenario), Marielle Durand (acquarelle), Editions First, 2021.
“L’HOMME QUI MARCHE”, by Jirô Taniguchi, Editions Casterman, 2015.
– “NEW YORK TRILOGIE”, by Will Esner, Editions Delcourt – Contrebande, 1984.
– ICI, MÊME”, by Jacques Tardi (drawings), Jean-Claude Forrest (script), Editions Casterman, 1979.

On the associative world and the social and solidarity economy (SSE):
– Patricia Coler, Marie-Catherine Henry, Jean-Louis Laville, Gilles Rouby, Quel monde associatif demain? Mouvements citoyens et démocratie, Editions Érès, 2021.

Move away from a preoccupation with noise abatement alone, and approach sound as an object of aesthetic study on the one hand, and as a dimension of architectural and urban space on the other.
Take account of the sound dimension in architectural design.

Continuous assessment: 50% and final exam: 50%.

PDF FILE (A4/30 pages maximum)

This is a personalized document with a critical look at a topic of your choice (bio-based materials or upcycling), with supporting references (note sources).

How can we understand the impact of conflicts and disasters on architecture and cities, particularly where heritage is concerned?
This course uses interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and case study analyses to address contemporary debates on heritage. The relationship with the approaches of international institutions, as well as local initiatives and more experimental methods of analyzing the impact of conflict and ecological disasters on heritage sites will also be explored (deepened in the following semester with the IEHM exploration Heritage at Risk II – documenting, diagnosing, protecting, preserving, repairing). Evolving historical contexts and current economic and political systems will be addressed, with an emphasis not only on the need to familiarize oneself with international and regional protection laws, their application, their impact on site maintenance and management, and the populations concerned. Students will also learn about new technologies and methodologies used in this field, as well as the broader ideological frameworks that influence this work. Diagnostic work cannot be reduced to technical or material concerns.
Course taught in English.

How do we make sense of the impact of conflicts and catastrophes on architecture and cities, particularly in relation to heritage concerns?
This course uses interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and analyses of case studies to address contemporary debates on heritage. The relation to the approaches of international institutions, as well as local initiatives and more experimental methods for analyzing the impact of conflicts and ecological disasters on heritage sites will also be explored (developed further next semester with the exploration IEHM Patrimoine endanger II – documenter,diagnostiquer, protéger, préserver, réparer). We’ll address evolving historical contexts and current economic and political systems, emphasizing not only the need to be familiar with international and regional protection laws, how they are applied, the impact on the maintenance and management of sites and the populations concerned. Students will be presented with information about new technologies and methodologies used in the field but also the broader ideological frameworks that influence this work. Diagnostic work cannot be reduced to technical or material concerns alone.
This course is taught in English.

Committed class attendance and participation; follow-up and presentation of readings. Analytical and critical research on a selected case study, political, urban and cultural context. Research and critical analysis project presented in presentation and poster versions. This graphic analysis will be the subject of a round table and/or a publication of the students’ work for the ENSAPLV community.

This course is taught in English.

Attendance and active participation in class; monitoring and presentation of readings. Analytical and critical research on a chosen case study, political, urban, and cultural context. Research and critical analysis project presented in lecture and poster formats. This graphic analysis work will be the subject of a round table discussion and/or publication of student work intended for the ENSAPLV community.

This course is taught in English.

Critical mapping and poster.

Giorgio Agamben, Stasis: Civil War as a Political Paradigm (University of Edinburgh, 2015)
Hiba Bou Akar, For the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut’s Frontiers (Stanford University, 2018)
Lucia Allais, Designs of Destruction: The Making of Monuments in the Twentieth Century (University of Chicago, 2018)
Sean Anderson and Mabel O. Wilson, eds, Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America (MoMA, 2021)
Aleida Assmann, Shadows of Trauma: Memory and the Politics of Postwar Identity (Fordham University, 2016)
Robert Bevan, The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War (Reaktion Books, 2016)
Ryan Bishop, G. Clancey and J. Phillips, eds, The City as Target (Routledge, 2012)
R. Bittner, W. Hackenbroich and K. Vöckler, eds, UN Urbanism (Jovis, 2017)
J. Bold, P. Larkham and R. Pickard, eds, Authentic Reconstruction: Authenticity, Architecture and the Built Heritage (Bloomsbury, 2018)
Lilet Breddels, Tetyana Oliynyk and Fulco Treffers, Urban Coalition for Ukraine (DOM, 2023)
Wendy Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (Zone, 2010)
Esther Charlesworth, Architects Without Frontiers: War, Reconstruction and Design Responsibility (Architectural Press/Elsevier, 2006)
Martin Coward, Urbicide: The Politics of Urban Destruction (Routledge, 2009)
T.J. Demos, Emily Eliza Scott, Subhankar Banerjee, eds, The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change (Routledge, 2023)
T.J. Demos, Beyond the World’s End: Ecologies of Catastrophe, Just Futures, and Arts of Living at the Crossing (Duke University, 2020)
A. Engberg-Pedersen and K. Maurer, eds. Visualizing War: Emotions, Technologies, Communities (Routledge, 2018)
Malcom Ferdinand, Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World (Polity Press, 2021)
Hélène Frichot, Adrià Carbonell, Hannes Frykholm and Sepideh Karami, eds, Infrastructural Love: Caring for Our Architectural Support Systems (Birkhäuser, 2022)
Stephen Graham, Cities Under Siege: New Military Urbanism (Verso, 2010)
Stephen Graham, ed. Cities, War, and Terrorism (Blackwell, 2004)
Ievgeniia Gubkina, Being a Ukrainian Architect During Wartime (DOM, 2023)
David Harvey and Jim Perry, eds, The Future of Heritage as Climates Change: Loss, Adaptation and Creativity (Routledge, 2015)
Julia Hell, Andreas Schönle, eds, Ruins of Modernity (Duke University Press, 2010)
Samia Henni, Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (gta Verlag, 2017)
Sandi Hial and Alessandro Petti, Refugee Heritage (Art and Theory Publishing, 2021)
Alice Hills, Future War In Cities (Routledge, 2004)
Jeffrey Hogrefe and Scott Ruff with Carrie Eastman and Ashley Simone, eds, In Search of African American Space: Redressing Racism (Lars Müller, 2020)
Denis Hollier, Against Architecture (MIT, 1989)
Mary Kaldor and Saskia Sassen, eds, Cities at War: Global Insecurity and Urban Resistance (Columbia University, 2020)
Irit Katz, The Common Camp: Architecture of Power and Resistance in Israel-Palestine (Minnesota, 2022)
Bechir Kenzari, ed. Architecture and Violence (Actar, 2011)
Liam Kennedy and Caitlin Patrick, eds, The Violence of the Image: Photography and International Conflict (IB Tauris, 2014)
Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, Fronts: Military Urbanisms and the Developing World (AR+D, 2020)
Bohdan Kryzhanovsky, ed, Architecture After War (MACK, 2024)
Andreas Malm, The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth (Verso 2025)
JoAnne Mancini, Keith Bresnahan, eds, Architecture and Armed Conflict: The Politics of Destruction (Routledge, 2014)
Nicholas Mirzoeff, Watching Babylon: The War in Iraq and Global Visual Culture (Routledge, 2005)
Shourideh Molavi, Environmental Warfare in Gaza (Pluto Press, 2024)
James Noyes, The Politics of Iconoclasm (I.B. Tauris, 2016)
Françoise Vergès and Seumboy Vrainom, De la violence coloniale dans l’espace public (Shed, 2021)
Paul Virilio, Sylvère Lotringer, Pure War (Semiotext(e), 2008)
McKenzie Wark, ‘From Architecture to Kainotecture’ (e-flux, 2017)
Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability (Zone Books, 2017)
Lebbeus Woods, War and Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press, 1996)
Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction (Princeton Architectural Press, 1997)
Slavoj Zizek, ed. in Mapping Ideology (Verso, 2012)

CLIMATE VULNERABILITIES AND THE RESOURCES OF VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE IN LATIN AMERICA

This Semester 7 course aims to raise students’ awareness of the architecture and city of yesterday (pre-Hispanic and colonial) and today in Latin America, particularly the Andean region (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador) at the crossroads of current climate vulnerabilities and challenges.

The aim is to provide methodological tools and knowledge of the different critical contexts in Latin America, enabling students to understand how the city of the South is made. On the other hand, the necessary approach to architectural design based on the interlocking of scales, from territory to habitat.

-Learn about the architectural heritage of raw earth, what Martin RAUCH calls “earth concrete”. Prefabricated adobe as the architectural gesture of the contemporary era.

Learn about the different methods of self-building in adobe, and how to make the most of local resources and know-how.

-Measuring the importance of domestic uses with a view to mapping lifestyles. The remarkable technological and cultural diversity of earthen construction practices, which includes a dozen major families of material production methods and constructive solutions, with numerous local cultural variants (know-how), broadens the choice of solutions adapted to the diversity of cultural contexts as well as technological, social, economic and climatic environments.

-Exploring with the group of students using the method of architecture: excavating the memory of places in search of the invisible of what has been forgotten or erased by man or by climatic disasters.

-Identify types of habitat, available materials and lifestyles on a domestic and neighborhood scale. The urban scale through the study of neighborhoods that preserve an ordinary heritage of high social and environmental quality. These urban forms will be studied as exceptional models.

-Transpose to similar contexts. Identifying the contextual framework with local specificities linked to bio-based materials will enable us to learn about good experiences that are not sufficiently disseminated to ensure the safety, comfort and sustainability of urban and rural habitats.

This course will ensure consistency with subsequent courses:

1. Semester 8 Project group P808 Latin American cities. Bolivia workshop with study trip to La Paz, Bolivia (two weeks April 2026)

2. Semester 8 EXPLO 814 INDIA Culture and Heritage / Climate Transition and Resilient Design

An oral presentation of personal and team work according to the methodology learned.
A final dossier with the 2 Exploration Works.
Each course is the subject of a debate, an exchange between students and teachers. This is the continuous assessment grade.
Attendance is compulsory.
Final grade: 60% attendance and CC
40% TD

TD1 ANALYSIS OF MUD HOUSE TYPOLOGIES IN BOLIVIA.
Directed work in pairs with Bolivian, Peruvian and French students
TD2 Work to be analyzed during exploration in teams

The list of books, documents and articles will be presented during the semester courses.

Each element of the Nexus represents the materials and relationships that architects, landscape architects and urban planners use and manipulate to create, or enhance, unique places.

This course focuses on urban soils and stormwater management, their relationships with the Nexus and their roles in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. The methods developed enable the sizing of structures to manage flows and reduce flood risks, and the reduction of the negative impact of stormwater pollution with innovative architectural and landscape design methods. The concomitant improvement of housing and adjacent public spaces through the integration of green infrastructure also contributes to urban resilience in the face of climate change.

The pedagogical objective is to provide students with both theoretical and practical knowledge that can be used directly in the design of their projects, while nourishing their critical thinking on these issues. The course includes a theoretical component and an experimentation/manipulation component (on the living soil/water/vegetation nexus), leading to the design and representation of integrated water management on the scale of a given building and interconnected public space, on a site in or around Paris.
The Nexus enables a holistic approach to water management by associating soil and vegetation as integral parts of the project proposal.

Attendance and participation during lessons,
Case studies / sketchbook,
Oral presentation of a technical project prepared during the semester.

Production of a conceptual and technical file, to be presented to a jury.

In the case of Ile d’Yeu, several essential works:
– Cahiers du patrimoine ; n°18. ISBN 2-906344-22-2. Yeu et Noirmoutier, îles de Vendée. Réd. Eric Coutureau, Hubert Maheux ; collab. Jean L’Helgouach ; photogr. . L’inventaire Cahiers du patrimoine, Cartonné avec jaquette 1994 In-4, (28×22 cm), hardback in illustrated dust jacket, 493 pages, color and black-and-white illustrations, index, banner inserted with book; dust jacket.
– L’Ile d’Yeu collection Zodiaque, no date, In-8 (22×17 cm), stapled spine, color illustrated cover, 50 pages, black/white illustrations.
– Images du patrimoine, Ile d’Yeu Vendée, Imprimerie nationale, 1988.