About this Travel Course
Course Description
The studio will explore Paris’s relationship to fresh food production and distribution, sociologically, economically, and esthetically. As their perspective of sustainability, esthetics and urban immediacy deepens, students will develop physical strategies that promote the “beautiful production of greens” as a normalized part of the urban landscape. This is a RISD studio: the spectrum of expression is vast. Projects may take the form of ephemeral events, infrastructurally-driven design, or start-up campaigns. Students will utilize a variety of media and work individually or in teams of two to combine aggregate skills. Final reviews will include renowned figures of design, from the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, urban theory and product design.
The format of the three-week long course will resemble that of a semester-long studio but will play out through a more compressed timeframe of daily meetings. Students will be encouraged to utilize a wide variety of media, including but not limited to: sketchbooks, physical models, photo-documentation, field notes, installations, and digital post-production, to research and imagine compelling platforms for food production for Parisians past, present and future. In addition to a mapping exercise and a final project review, students must document observations and research in a sketchbook.
Materials
- Sketchbook
- Drawing utensils (pens, pencils etc)
- Camera, or smart phone with camera
- Laptop with mouse
Course Objectives
- Research converging technologies that enabled the city of Paris to sustainably grow massive amounts of produce all year round
- Analyze the impacts of providing high quality design to productive urban landscapes–how do fresh produce, culinary experimentation, and public engagement come together under similar aesthetic standards
- Consider the critical interconnections between the built and natural environments as they relate to urban food systems in a city like Paris; define this complex urban ecosystem
- Explore a variety of design platforms: from artistic to technical, from profitable to equitable, from ephemeral to lasting, from inclusive to arcane, from systems to place/object
- Articulate design parameters and a scale for design intervention on an existing urban fabric
- Develop and refine a conceptual strategy for Paris, and potentially other major cities.
Learning Outcomes
The format of the three-week long course will resemble that of a semester, a long studio with two projects that come together through a compressed timeframe of daily meetings, workshops, work sessions and studio reviews.
Project One
In the 1950s, French philosopher Guy Debord coined the term dérive (drift)to designate the experimental behavior in urban conditions one can use to wander through an urban landscape and “let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounter they find there”. As a technique in psychogeography, the dérive allows for the study of the city in relation to one’s emotional states, which together create situations.
In Project One students will be practicing the techniques of the dérive, adapted to observations of spatial adjacency and the requirement of light for traditional cultivation. We will wander through specific examples of productive landscape, both historic and contemporary with consideration to the relationship of the built environment and the infrastructures that shaped the history and development of food systems in Paris. The group will work creatively and experimentally assemble a series of personal cartographies (or mappings) around their preliminary observations of Paris. But where the dérive recorded collaged experiences, we will bridge adjacencies and identify potential areas for edible landscapes.
Returning back to studio, students will generate mappings through a combination of digital/analogue drawing, three-dimensional models, and text. This work will begin to ask the questions needed to develop a critical proposal and narrative, forming the basis for Project Two.
Project Two
In Project 2, we will build upon our research of productive landscape strategies in Paris, individual cartographies, and narratives to cultivate innovative opportunities for growing food in urban environments. Based on individual interests, proposals may take on multiple forms of production including; site design, food systems analysis + planning strategies, communication + education, product design, etc. Students will spend their final week in the design studio intensely refining their concept narratives and physically representing them. There will be multiple group and individual critiques throughout the final week. Students will also rely on each other’s diverse expertise to advance their projects and skills.
Housing
To participate in RISD Global Summer Studios, all students are required to stay in RISD- provided housing for the duration of the course. Students will be accommodated in double/triple occupancy rooms with shared bathrooms.