Environmental
design
Pro Materia
Workshop
'Designing public spaces and mobility'
Liège,
Wallonia (BE), 25-26 October 2004
PDF Program of the workshop
Objectives of
the workshop
Humanizing
public spaces and mobility
The
aim is to make the public authorities to the added value of a collaboration
of a designer, a design agency or an architect, in order to draw new and more
adapted facilities for the citizens and the users of public transports. The
impact on the collectivity is one way of making a relevant analysis of all the
factors (design for all, accessibility, safety, wellbeing...) related to the
improvement of the urban environment and quality of life.
Emphasizing
the creativity of designers and architects
The
objective here is to define the various fields in which a designer or an architect
can intervene with furniture and lighting design within a public space . The
keyword "environmental design" will be used to underline the intervention
within public indoor or outdoor spaces. The specific competencies which are
implemented while conceiving and implementing new furniture and lighting designs
will also be taken into account.
Supporting
interdisciplinarity
Encouraging
teamwork between designers and architects, knowing that their creative, technical
and esthetical competencies are complementary and can be shared is one of the
main aspects of this workshop.
Looking
at the European dimension
By
welcoming speakers from all over Europe, the workshop will open up the debate
on environmental design in its international dimension, from the north to the
south of Europe: Benelux, Germany, United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Italy,…
Target publics
Furniture
and lighting producers, publishers, distributors, product developers, in-house
designers, free-lance designers, architects, urban planners, publics and local
authorities and design/architecture students. Mainly a professional public.
Participants:
max. 150 persons
The
workshop will take place in the Cœur-Saint-Lambert in Liège during the same
period as the Design Biennial in Liège (22/10-15/11/2004).
The
weekend before the workshop, the participants can visit the 19 th international
design biennial Interieur in Kortrijk which takes place from 15 until 24 October
2004 at Kortrijk Xpo, www.interieur.be.
Programme
Monday 25 October
2004
9:30 - 10:00
Registration of participants and coffee
10:00 - 10:30
Welcoming speech
10:30 - 11:00 Defining,
exploring and teaching environmental design
Élie Levy, professor in
Environmental Design, La Cambre Visual Arts, Brussels (B)
Design
education is again in crisis. The issues are not connected to the question of
what form architecture or design should pretend to take but more to its programme.
Today, architects and designers are looking at the new urbanity. The designer
as an actor within a community of citizens, has to respond to essential questions
in a fair manner: “What type of creation? Why? For whom? Through whom? How?” The
sustainability necessarly has the consequence to change our style of living, producing
and consuming. By proposing new strategies, environmental design, as we now commonly
call it, takes position and acts towards politics, culture, environment, economics,
in the domestic but also in the public design spheres.
11:00 - 11:30
Coffee break
11:30 - 12:00
The Saint-Lambert Square in Liège
Claude
Strebelle, Daniel Boden, Linh Quang Tuan, Thierry Drèze architects, Atelier
du Sart Tilman, Liège (B)
Since 1984, the Atelier
du Sart-Tilman is in charge of the redevelopment of the Saint-Lambert square
and district in Liège, disfigured by ill-considered destructions. Its aim is
to reorganize the existant urban structure, creating pedestrian precincts and
saving the historical heritage to restore a human dimension in the heart of
the city.
12:00 - 12:30
Design and architecture of public spaces
Italo
Rota, Rota & Partners, Milan (I)
By
running his studio in architecture and urban planning in Milan, Italo Rota is
dealing with various projects at the same time in the field of designing public
spaces and mobility as well as conceiving a scenography or an interior for a
public exhibition at the Triennale di Milano or a Louis Vuitton store. Current
and recent works handled by his studio are the lighting planning of the Seine
Banks in Paris, as well as the conception of two rapid and light metro lines
in Brescia.
12:30
- 13:00 Debate
13:00 - 14:30
Lunchbreak and visit of the Liège Design Biennial 2004
14:30 - 15:00
Design, architecture and public spaces in Wallonia: : a zoom on Liège
Pierre
Henrion, curator of the open air museum Sart-Tilman - Liège, and freelance exhibitions
curator, Liège (B)
For twenty years, Liège
called “La Cité ardente” in Wallonia, has seen a large number of significant
projects implemented in terms of designing public spaces. Since the Saint-Antoine
courtyard finished in the early 80s by Charles Vandenhove, until the urban planning
reflections coming out from the construction of the new Guillemins train station
by the architect Santiago Calatrava (which should be achieved by 2006), the
context of Liège is following the evolution of the look on the city developments
since the refusal of modernism dogmas.
15:00
- 16:00 Designing light as an object or an environment
Bruno
Demeester - Koert Vermeulen, lighting designers, ACT
The
aim of their work is the integration of a creative and sensitive lighting design
approach into the built environment. “We fill the gap between professionals using
light as an expressive tool (such as lighting, photography…) and professionals
implementing lighting techniques in the built environment (such as building services
engineers). In most projects, we attempt to bring together stage lighting techniques
(dynamic lighting, colours) with high quality architectural lighting to create
installations enhancing the environment and lifting the spirit of the people going
through these places.”
16:00
- 16:30 Contemporary landscapes in the city
Elco
Hoofman, Gross. Max
Why
suffocate on an overdose of chlorophyll if we can boost our level of adrenaline
instead… The optimism of Gross. Max . acts as a refreshing breeze in the conservative
establishment of British landscape architecture. Eelco Hooftman will talk about
recent public space projects of Gross. Max in Glasgow, Birmingham, London, Rotterdam
and Bilbao. In London the practice contributes with a range of competition winning
design projects to a new “Cool Britain” as part of Mayor’s Ken Livingston ambitious
“100 Space For London” programme.
16:30 - 17:00
Coffee break
17:00
- 17:30 Lighting design of public spaces: between
reason and emotion
Vesa
Honkonen
We
have the freedom to choose our starting points, don't we. This is accepted in
art, however in architecture this can cause trouble and confusion. Sometimes it
is best to find solutions which do not originate from a reason, or from a reason
acceptable for the society. Can a small bird singing be as good a starting point
as the geography of a place. Do these have to contradict?
17:30
- 18:00 Conclusions of the day and debate
Tuesday 26 October
2004
9:30
- 11:00 Panel: Travelling in the sphere
of urban mobility
Axel
Enthoven, design manager, EADC, Antwerp (B) – Alain Flausch, general director,
STIB, Brussels (B) – Jacques Tilman, design manager, INOV, Franc-Waret (B) –
Yo Kaminagai, Design & Cultural projects manager, RATP, Paris (F) – Italo
Rota, Rota & Partners, Milan (I)
This panel of discussion
will focus on the future of urban mobility and on all the key issues related
to accessibility (design for all), safety, sustainability… Does design play
its ecological and social roles? What are its influences on urban planning and
city developments? What is the dialogue between design and the public? Case
studies such as Brussels, Ghent in Belgium, Paris in France, Brescia in Italy
and Jerusalem in Israël will surely provide us with some interesting insights
of the subject.
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee
break
11:30
- 12:00 The
RATP: a vision of the public transports of the future
Yo
Kaminagai, Design & cultural projects manager, ratp , Paris (F)
The
ratp is an urban services operator whose mission goes beyond the field of mobility:
transports, space management, information, well thought additional services.
Design is part of the company’s history. Since the end of the 19 th century
until now, design has never ceased to be developed based on a specific strategy.
Questions have been raised about the notion of spaces of transports, the company
methods linking design to project management and its necessary resources. The
current policy of the ratp contributes to enlarge the service to the traveller
and also to invent new type of models, such as the Météor line.
12:00
- 12:30 Debate on the impact of design on the
urban mobility in Europe
12:30 - 14:00
Lunchbreak
14:00 - 16:00
Projects and prototypes of urban furniture by young Belgian designers
-
Xavier Lust, designer, Elixir, Brussels (B): non produced project of a well
integrated bus station and other public design fittings.
-
Lucile Soufflet, designer, Brussels (B): produced and non produced public benches
projects and public signs.
-
Damien Bihr, designer, Naos Design, Brussels-Tournai (B): produced lighting
design for Schréder group, Liège (B) and other non produced public design.
-
Sylvain Willenz, designer, Brussels (B): urban design projects.
16:00 - 16:30
Conclusions of the workshop
Lise
Coirier, President, Pro Materia asbl, Brussels (B)
Location:
Auditorium
Cœur-Saint-Lambert
Îlot Saint-Michel
Place Saint-Lambert
B- 4000 Liège
The seminar is
free of charge.
If you want to
attend the workshop, please call or e-mail, before 15/10/2004:
Pro Materia asbl,
Elisabethlaan 4, B- 3080 Tervuren
E-mail: promateria@skynet.be
Phone:
0475/53 19 88 (Lise Coirier) or 0476/80 40 80 (Geneviève Defrance)
The
Design Biennial in Liège
The
Service of Cultural Affairs and the OPMA (Office provincial des Métiers d'Art)
presents, from 22 October until 14 November 2004, an exhibition called Design
2004.
This
second design Biennial shows works of some fourty designers and students coming
from Wallonia and the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. It is combined with several other
events in the city. At the Espace Wallonie, there is an exhibition on contemporary
glassware design produced by Le Val-Saint-Lambert. In parallel, the Maison des
Métiers d'Art of Liège shows a selection of “Botte-Cul” from Lausanne (little
chair used by Swiss farmers to sit on while they milk).
On
28th of October at 5 pm, a symposium happens in the Auditorium of the Cœur-Saint-Lambert,
followed by a meeting with well-known designers. On 9th of November, an economic
day is held in the Vertbois Conference Centre covering the topic of the relationships
between designers and companies.
During
the week-end of 22 - 23 October, a design itinerary throughout the city is organized
by a group of local shops.
Info:
Mady Dethier
Rue
des Croisiers, 15 B-4000 Liège
Tel.
+32 (0) 4 232 86 76
E-mail: design@prov-liege.be
, www.design2004.be
The
project is supported by the European Union (Interreg IIIA-Euregio Meuse-Rhine)
and by See and Touch www.see-and-touch.com.
.