Eco-Urban Network / Ecobox

A series of self-managed projects in the La Chapelle area of northern Paris which encourage residents to get access to and critically transform temporary misused or underused spaces. These projects initiated in 2001 valorise a flexible and reversible use of space and aim to preserve urban ‘biodiversity’ by encouraging the co-existence of a wide range of life-styles and living practices.

aaa began this process by establishing a temporary garden constructed out of recycled materials. The garden, called ECObox, has been progressively extended into a platform for urban criticism and creativity, which is curated by the aaa members, residents and external collaborators and which catalyses activities at a local and trans-local level.

Budget: 65.000€ / during 5 years (local, national and EU funding)
voluntary work value: 100.000€/ during 5 years

more Information abou Eco-Urban Network you will finde here:

http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/ecobox-mobile-devices-and-urban-tactics/

The atelier d’architecture autogérée (aaa)

Atelier d’architecture autogérée / studio for self-managed architecture (aaa) is a collectivef platform which conducts explorations, actions and research concerning urban mutations and cultural, social and political emerging practices in the contemporary city.
aaa acts through ‘urban tactics’, encouraging the participation of inhabitants at the self-management of disused urban spaces, overpassing contradictions and stereotypes by proposing nomad and reversible projectsf, initiating interstitial practices which explore the potential of contemporary city ( in terms of population, mobility, temporality).
It is by micro-political acting that they want to participate in making the city more ecological and more democratic, to make the space of proximity less dependent on top-down processes and more accessible to its users. The ‘self-managed architecture’ is an architecture of relationships, processes and agencies of persons, desires, skills and know-hows. Such an architecture does not correspond to a liberal practice but asks for new forms of association and collaboration, based on exchange and reciprocity and involving all those interested (individuals, organisations, institutions), whatever is their scale.
The architecture is at the same time political and poetic as it aims above all to ‘create relationships between worlds’.
(source: http://www.urbantactics.org)

urban matters