PARIS, FRANCE Co-Urbanism, 2 Collaborative Practices of the City

At a time when the role of citizens in the composition of the city has become essential, the exhibition Co-Urbanism explores various paths as well as seeks out conditions for collective urbanization to improve the cohabitation of citizens and experts through twenty-one different approaches from France and beyond.
The projects, which entail the co-conception and management of public spaces, short-term equipment support for social revitalization, foreign universities and non-programmed spaces, co-programming tools, program roadmap, and open initiatives, revive the principles that have been erased by financial or regulatory constraints. Devised by a diverse team of architects, urbanists, multidisciplinary research institutes, public institutions, designers, and cultural actors, they seek to innovate pluralistic approaches at the intersection between the city and the human.
According to the curatorial collective, Collective Approche.s!, the challenge of this approach is to find ways to enrich the classical urban planning strategies with such proposals and to put them into action. General solutions do not apply in these cases as individual projects are designed with particular circumstances in mind and realized through the collaboration of experts. They also draw inspiration from adaptation, methodological hybridization, and the transformation of collaborative tools. This urbanization strategy seeks to increase the potential of what is already there (déjà là) by subtly changing its form. This way of intervening across time and space recognizes Paris as an ecosystem and puts the focus on citizen initiative.