ENSCI DESIS Lab

Submitted by admin on Fri, 02/03/2012 - 2:49pm

ENSCI DESIS Lab, Paris, France

Hosting Institution: ENSCI - Les Ateliers, Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle
48 rue St Sabin 75011 Paris, France
tel. : +33 1 49 23 12 30/17
website: www.ensci.com

Coordinator: François Jégou assisted by Marie Coirié
tel: +32 (0)495 50 24 33
f.jegou@gmail.com

Since its creation 30 years ago, ENSCI - Les Ateliers has always been a platform for experimentation, a place for exploring new areas of practice - both in terms of design knowledge / skills and methods of teaching / learning them. The creation of a new lab dedicated to social innovation and sustainability corresponds to a firm engagement to the development of these fields as major areas of investigation in the School, at undergraduate (master students), post-graduate (post-master) and research levels.

The Paris DESIS Lab is positioned at the crossroads between research (methodology) and design practice. It has been created in answer to the pressing issue of how design can support the transition to sustainable living and responsible consumption. It will investigate how to contribute to the design of collaborative solutions involving users and new hybrid business models, how to contribute to participative transformation of local infrastructures towards a sustainable eco-system of actors...

Key objectives and topics:

- society pull as a third dynamic of change in dialogue with technology push and market pull;

- social innovation towards new forms of services, organisation and relationships between people;

- community centred collective and participative innovation beyond the involvement of individual users;

- new and more sustainable ways of living beyond efficiency of current products and systems;

- green skills focusing ethics and values of individuals, sustainable education and emerging competences and jobs for transition;

- focus on the local scale including distributed production, reduced mobility and constitution of small ecosystems;

- social cohesion, peer-to-peer exchange and global connectivity towards open networks and new forms of multi-level governance;

- design for societal innovation including (but beyond) social design;

- exploration of approaches and tools based on participation, interdisciplinarity, scenario building, visualisation, quick mock-ups, experimentation and permanent social conversation.

ENSCI Paris DESIS Lab strives to apply the above design principles in its own practice, recently centred around an Experimental Studio (set up 2 years ago) with the intention of testing these topics with external partners, raising interest and involvement amongst students and staff and preparing the kick-off of the 2012 DESIS Lab.

Past activities have particularly focused on:

- mapping of promising social initiatives in terms of sustainable living;

- strategic design activities to develop scenarios of collaborative services;

- strategic conversation with stakeholders to develop synergies and resilience at the local eco-systems level.

Partner projects were developed in collaboration with regional governments and focused on, for instance, new services to enhance sustainable living in peri-urban areas; a sample ‘box of visions’ to inspire social innovation in the building of new colleges by Regional government; co-design of a toolkit to support active participative democracy among secondary school pupils and staff...

These projects were developed with PERL, the EU and UNEP funded Partnership for Education and Research for Responsible Living; La 27e Région public innovation lab (France), and the Foresight and Education departments of the Nord Pas-de-Calais region.

ENSCI Paris DESIS Lab will continue to pursue this track of co-evolution between social innovation and public innovation. Future activities will align with the newly created DESIS Public and Collaborative cluster with a focus on the innovation of public services and institutions, planning by micro-projects and design of public policies.

List of projects and research:

Nord Pas-de-Calais: Future of Suburban Areas
Workshop organised with D2PE Nord Pas-de-Calais Region and La 27e Région, Spring 2010.

My College Tomorrow: Redesigning Public Action
Experimental studio with La 27e Région, Strategic Design Scenarios, the Directions of Education of Nord Pas-de-Calais and Champagne-Ardenne regions, Autumn 2010.

Participative Budget of Colleges: Enabling Project Toolbox for and by Colleges
Experimental studio with the Direction of Education of Nord Pas-de-Calais region, PERL and La 27e Région, Spring 2011.

Schools as agents for social change
PERL side session at the 19th Commission on Sustainable Development, NYC, Spring 2011.