Les nouveaux bâtisseurs

Good old Gill Kayo and Block in action with some assistance of Gill Sans Bold and Bold Extra Condensed plus a custom handwriting font, for a community design project called Les nouveaux bâtisseurs (“The new builders/architects”).

The community of Val de Briey (France, Lorraine), which organizes the Impression d’Architecture festival with its well-known Grand Prix du Livre d’Architecture, invited us to set up an exhibition for the 2017 edition. With Mathieu Zimmer, working for the Agency deux degrés, we have opted for a festive and fun event which would make the general public curious about architecture and urbanism.

How could we do something festive and fun? Well, nothing better than working with ten voluntary kids! We asked Apolline, Margo, Thomas, Lounis, Laetitia, Alice, Maxence, Miliau, Malo and Tiphaine (9–10 years old) if they could present their community and imagine how to improve it. Our objective: Set up an exhibition and most of all a funny event – a fair!

Context
Three months before the exhibition-fair event, we visited the city and worked with the kids around small educative and fun workshops. The kids were asked to work on three main themes regarding their territory: moving, dwelling and having fun. They had to think about the existing, what is missing, but also about their future. Each child then imagined a project for the commune – a theme park for elderly, flying cars or an app to move yourself with giant animals – and we helped to formalize them through drawings and mental maps.

At the end of the week, we worked on home-made posters which would be used as teasers for the future exhibition. We wanted to give the floor to the children and let their imagination talk. To give a good place to their ideas, I only supervised their projects by colorful and funny graphics.

Exhibition/fair
After collecting multiple ideas, drawings, sketches or cards, we worked on emphasizing their project during the big exhibition outdoors. With the help of architect Julien King-George, we worked on the scenography, that should allow the various inhabitants of the townships to meet. At the center, we installed a kiosk with a view of the municipality and all the projects. During the fair, each inhabitant could turn around the different panels, participate in several activities and rediscover their own city from a new perspective.