The national School of Architecture, Paris-Belleville

Transcription

1 The national School of Architecture, Paris-Belleville

2 The National School of Architecture, Paris-Belleville Founded in 1969 by Bernard Huet and a group of architecture students from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the National School of Architecture, Paris-Belleville (ENSA-PB), is an associate body of Université Paris-Est (UPE). It is one of the twenty national schools of architecture functioning under the aegis of France s Ministry of Culture and Communications. As such it is authorised to teach the national programme while developing its own course orientations, and to issue diplomas with the same status as university degrees. Its identity The ENSA-PB study programme is based on the notion of the architectural project and embraces the fields of town planning, building, landscape and heritage. The School aims to defend and achieve recognition for the cultural, symbolic, practical and political aspects of architecture. It places particular emphasis on the social responsibility of the architect and has expanded its construction training side. Its mandate Their studies completed, new graduates take up posts in project management and the designing and development of public spaces, but also in such more varied fields as commissioning projects, preparing architectural briefs, scenography, landscaping and major hazard prevention. Some statistics Over 5,214 architects trained in 44 years, a total community of 1,353, 1 Master s, 3 advanced and specialist architecture degrees, 1,117 students including 390 undergraduates (155 in first year), 454 Master s students, 84 international students, 98 students taking the postgraduate DSA ( Diplôme de Spécialisation et d Approfondissement en Architecture, Post graduate diploma), 105 taking the HMONP course in project management, 29 taking the Cities, Transport and Territories doctorate at Université Paris-Est, 68 professors and lecturers, 81 non-tenured teachers, 32 teacher-researchers at the Ipraus laboratory, and 59 administrative and technical personnel. The budget for 2014 was 5,571,684. The two sites include 15,600 square metres of usable floor area, of which 800 square metres are used for research. The school exists to train professionals in the building sphere in response to the necessary diversification of architectural professions and the increasing significance of environmental considerations.

3 The projects: training and research The beginning The School was founded when the architecture department of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts broke up: both teachers and students wanted to cut free of a heavily academic approach in favour of multidisciplinary teaching conducive to an awareness of architecture and its boundaries in historical, ideological, sociological, philosophical and constructional terms. Teaching and research Training at ENSA-PB is based on a set of four principles that make up the School s teaching project: - A necessarily multidisciplinary approach combining know-how and content, theory and practice, and training in architectural and urban projects and other disciplines. - A basis of shared learning covering, in particular, mastery of spatial representation from drawing by hand to use of computers together with the theory and history of architecture, construction, the humanities and the social sciences. - A relationship between the educational project and the research project. A fundamental part of the School s philosophy, this relationship hinges on the teaching body s involvement in research and ensures regular updating of course content. It is also a statement to the effect that the teaching of architecture cannot be considered a mere form of professional training. - Primacy for the architectural and urban projects, taught in workshops and accounting for 50% of the teaching. Students are taught to design projects for buildings, public facilities and housing at local, urban and territorial level. Research is a core part of the School s teaching system. In the field of architectural research, Ipraus (Paris Research Institute: Architecture, Urbanism, Society) has been combining and comparing the disciplines of architectural and urban projects with the humanities and the social sciences since its founding in The approach calls for complementarity between disciplines and their methodologies in respect of a common goal: the architectural space of the city as it emerges in dialogue with forms of social organisation and through its production processes. This stance has enabled the acquisition of specific contents and conceptual tools, as well as the production of knowledge relating to architecture as a discipline. Since January 1, 2010 Ipraus has been part of the Joint Research Unit Architecture, Urbanism, Society: Knowledge, Education, Research (UMR AUSser no. 3329), attached to the Ministry of Culture and Communications. It also receives students from the Cities, Transport and Territories doctoral school at Université Paris-Est, of which ENSA-PB is an associate body. Ipraus research themes are The Architecture of Territories: transport, urban forms, environment History and Prospects; Architecture and Cities in Contemporary Asia: heritage and project; Architecture and the Technical Approach; Heritage and Project; Present-day Architecture: mediations and concrete outcomes; Architecture: dissemination, transmission, teaching.

4 Study programmes Bachelor of Architecture At the end of this three-year course the student must be capable of producing a complete architectural and building project and an urban architectural programme. Teaching is on a step by step basis, and students must reach the required standard in each discipline. The first year brings initial contact with the rudiments of architecture and building, the acquisition of representational techniques in terms of drawing and spatial perception, and an introduction to the project. Second year studies involve a broader, more detailed approach to the project, with students acquiring vital concepts for the analysis of built structures, beginning to develop a sound approach to the project, and addressing urban issues with direct architectural implications. The third year equips students with a spatial approach to architectural layout, together with the capacity to handle matters of construction and urban scale in the context of designing a complete project. The Master s Students who have completed their Master s must be capable of designing an architectural and an urban project unassisted. They must also be able to apply critical analysis to building processes in different contexts, on different scales, and in terms of use, techniques and time frames. They must be aware, too, of the role of research, as well as of the different ways of functioning and different professional areas now part of the practice of architecture. At Master s level study programs are individualised through freedom of choice in the shaping of content and experiments: the studio courses and workshops are not strictly interdependent. A Research segment is available for students wishing to give their studies this emphasis. Double curricula From first year onwards the School offers as an option the courses in civil engineering at its partner establishment, the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM). This makes possible a double architecture-engineering curriculum. From second year onwards a number of students can undertake an architecture-industrial design double curriculum organised in partnership with the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle (ENSCI). Post-Master s studies The HMONP course in project management is intended to prepare students for specific future responsibilities: personal responsibility, project manager responsibilities, and project economics and regulation. The three postgraduate DSA (Diplôme de Spécialisation et d Approfondissement en Architecture) degrees cover the issues raised by the diversification and evolution of professional practices and skills. They certify a course of eighteen months or two years designed to help young professionals develop their awareness, understanding and technical expertise in a specific field. For experienced architects they offer a means of broadening their perspectives; and for engineers, landscapers and urbanists, they represent an opportunity to compare the methods and contents of their initial training with the architectural approach, with an emphasis on matters requiring a combination of points of view and qualifications. The School s aim, then, is teaching that revolves around areas of specialisation relevant to current issues in the social arena. Unique in France, the Architecture and Major Hazards DSA centres on questions not normally associated with each other: prevention of major hazards in architectural design and urban projects, and the role of the architect in emergency situations and reconstruction. It covers the dangers to people and the environment stemming from natural phenomena and human activity. The Architecture and Heritage DSA introduces students to all aspects of heritage relating to the architecture, urbanism and landscaping of the modern and contemporary periods. The question here is not so much the restoration of historical monuments as the acquisition of the ability to take action on existing sites at all levels and to make appropriate critical assessments of proposed programmes of transformation ranging from individual buildings to urban entities. With the Ecole de Chaillot, ENSAPB is the only school offering this kind of specialist heritage degree. The theme of the Architecture and Urban Project DSA is the large-scale project. The teaching draws in particular on the work on production of ideas and proposals currently sparked by the Grand Paris venture. All ENSA-PB study programmes received renewed official approval in (valid until for the bachelor s degree and the Master s). Doctorates Together with the Marne-la-Vallée and Paris-Malaquais schools of architecture, ENSA-PB is part of the Cities, Transport and Territories doctoral department at Université Paris-Est (UPE). Students preparing a doctorate in architecture are enrolled at UPE s doctoral school, where they work under the guidance of a qualified research supervisor and are are admitted to the Ipraus / AUSser research laboratory. 37 doctoral students were admitted to Ipraus in Co-tutelle is becoming a more common practice within the School s international network. Since 2004 ENSA-PB, through an agreement with the IUAV university of architecture in Venice and four other European universities, has been an active participant in the Villard d Honnecourt doctorate, whose theme is the identity of European architecture.

5 Student recruitment Adaptation in first year First year admissions Holders of the French baccalaureate or students preparing for it, and candidates from the EU, the European Economic Area or Switzerland who are qualified to undertake higher education in France, must initially apply via the Admission Post Bac coordinating portal ( Admission to other years Holders of the bachelor s degree take the Master s at the School itself and account for 95% of its Master s candidates. Transfers: the great majority of requests for transfers concern the Master s, but the School is able to accept only a very small number of such requests. Holders of EU and non-eu bachelor of architecture degrees: each year a small number of such graduates is admitted. Subject to validation of credits or partial study exemptions, a small number of students are admitted to the Master s, as they are considered to have already acquired the fundamentals through their training and/or professional activity. Specific groups and special cases The school s size, student-teacher ratio, general organisation, administrative commitment and facilities lend themselves to flexibility of intake and timetabling. One or two top athletes are admitted each year, as are some adults with validation of professional experience and one or two disabled people. As the first year of studies is decisive, the School pays close attention to its new students. An introductory session offered in September includes presentation of the teaching programme, the study calendar and the student portal. Teachers explain the content of their courses and their requirements. An inexpensive starting kit is available. The Belasso Association organises a mentoring system for first-year students, each of whom is advised, assisted and encouraged by a more advanced student. An introduction to the library is complemented by compulsory initiation into documentary research, the aim being self-reliance in searching for information. Further backup is provided by a tour of the Cité de l Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris. In late October the School organises a five-day first-year trip to a European city. This involves all students, together with teachers of architecture, history and the visual arts. In addition to aiding adaptation, this stay helps immerse students in various aspects of architecture and cities in general: theory, history and visual representation are addressed through tours, lectures and intensive drawing sessions. The organisation of the first-year teaching team means that students in difficulty are quickly identified and the appropriate steps decided on in dialogue with them.

6 The teaching at ENSA-PB The types of teaching are generally the same at bachelor, Master s and DSA level: compulsory or optional lectures on the technical subjects construction, geometry, computer science as well as on architecture itself its theory, history and sociology and English. At the beginning of each semester there are crash courses in the form of workshops, presentations and tutorials. They introduce subjects to be gone into in greater detail later in the semester, or methodically address particular situations. When the work is of a collective nature, each student s contribution is identifiable. The tutorials take the form of additional teaching or practical work relating to one or more classes in the fields of construction, geometry, sociology and urban studies. Workshops take place on-site or in specific venues and bear on either the creation, testing, study and handling of relevant tools, or completion of a task or project in the field of the visual arts, drawing, materials (wood in particular), educational media and computer graphics. Master s seminars combine the approaches of teachers from different and complementary disciplines to questions relating to architecture or the city. They are rounded off by a thesis presented and defended at the end of the third semester. The studio courses specific approaches to the architectural project are organised under the guidance of teachers, each working with some fifteen students. The considerable workload research, sketches, drawings, models, studies, fine tuning, details, presentation data presupposes ongoing commitment on the student s part and represents 50% of his overall schedule. The architectural or urban graduation project takes up the Master s final semester. It allows the student to demonstrate his capacity for independence in architectural design and implement the knowledge and work methods he has acquired in the course of his training. Internships are compulsory from bachelor level onwards. They can be of many kinds, and at Master s, DSA and HMONP level they involve work in real professional situations. A focus for practical implementation of what has been learnt, the internship is also a time of discovery and knowledge acquisition with regard to the student s future profession. Students may undertake additional internships as long as they fit with the regulatory requirements and can be justified educationally. Organised travel always takes place within a teaching framework and in the context of a specific programme and purpose. Trips involve individual work reports, sketches, documentation, etc. which is sometimes included in exhibitions at the School. At DSA level these trips are often the actual basis of the teaching project. Lectures are open to all students and can provide additional backup for personal work. On site, students may work in the library, the studios and the computer rooms until 10 pm or midnight during the week and during the day on Saturdays.

7 Partnership courses Continuing education The Assistant Project Manager for Spatial Planning course This one-year course is part of a partnership between the Université Paris-Est Marne (Urban Engineering Department), the National Schools of Architecture of Marne-la-Vallée (ENSAVT) and Paris-Belleville (ENSA-PB), and the City of Paris School of Engineering (EIVP). It covers the fields of architecture, urban planning and urban engineering. The course is designed to provide the theoretical grounding, skills and know-how needed to assist architects, urbanists and engineers in the management and operational handling of projects. Open to students possessing a degree in technology or a two-year senior technician s certificate, or having completed two years of a general studies BA, it is intended as a bridge to immediate employability and not to a Master s. Master 2. European Track Tackling Metropolitan Challenges in Europe - Comparative Analysis ENSA-PB offers continuing education to professionals in architecture and urban and territorial planning. The courses are often designed and taught in a context of partnership or coproduction, via the major institutional, educational and professional network the School has built up. The School s current principal aims are: to specifically enhance certain study topics or modules, especially within its sphere of doctoral specialisation, so as to make them more generally available and thus: - contribute to the training of public sector actors and authorities in the fields of architecture and urban and territorial planning - communicate the culture of architecture to a broad, non-professional public keen to acquire the knowledge and tools needed to grasp the thinking behind the designing and implementation of architectural and planning projects. The School also informs and assists practising architecture graduates with enrolment in continuing education courses leading to the HMONP and DSA qualification it issues. In the context of Université Paris-Est s Labex Futurs Urbains (Urban Futures Excellence Laboratory), a European Master 2 was created in 2012 for students from all kinds of backgrounds. The course brings together universities in France, Italy and Germany, and comprises one semester in France and another in Hamburg or Milan. Teaching is in English.

8 International outreach International visibility and recognition For many years now ENSA-PB has been organising international cooperative initiatives in the teaching and research fields: 80% of its students travel in Europe and beyond; it attracts doctoral and post-doctoral students, as well as researchers, from abroad; and it engages in long-term bilateral research programmes. These exchanges have provided the basis for the training of many doctoral students now directing teaching activities and research in their home countries countries with which ongoing and expanding partnerships have been set up. Cooperative ventures currently include universities all over the world, from the United States to Korea and from Brazil to Vietnam. This visibility is also the outcome of involvement in international networks centred on the theme Architecture, Cities and Urban Development and/or on specific geographical and cultural areas: the architectural and research network Metropolises of Asia and the Pacific: Comparative Architecture and Urbanism, coordinated by Ipraus; the CNRS/MSH Asie-Imasie network; Euroseas (European Association for South East Asian Studies); Urban Knowledge Network Asia (Ukna); and France s Vauban Network. Several of these cooperative programmes have grown out of educational ventures involving Erasmus student exchanges, EU doctoral students, co-tutelle theses, etc. International exchanges Every year ENSA-PB sends 60 to 80 students to other universities and takes in 90 students from abroad. This is done through the Erasmus programme and inter-school partnerships with 46 countries in Europe and 18 others around the world. Cooperative projects ENSA-PB works cooperatively with universities abroad: studio courses are shared with Chulalong Korn (Bangkok, Thailand), Siem Reap (Cambodia), Roma La Sapienza and the University of Austin, Texas. There are shared workshops with the Shibaura Institute in Tokyo and the universities of Hanyang (Seoul, Korea), Tallin (Estonia) and Lima (Peru). The DSA courses are also part of international cooperation ventures, notably focusing on major hazards (Haiti), large territories (Shanghai and Hanoi) and heritage (Tianjin in China). Educational trips Most students go on annual study tours, in France, Europe and further afield. These trips are supervised by teachers, often in combination with international cooperative projects. Pont Long Bien - Hanoï DSA Architecture et projet urbain

9 Jean-Noël Pignet Local outreach Lectures, classes for the public, exhibitions, publications. ENSA-PB has always used exhibitions, lectures, colloquia, publications and other means to communicate the culture of architecture to both students and teachers, with two goals in mind: to highlight the school s output notably in the form of student work while offering students access to content and experiments beneficial to their training and the chance to engage with actors in the professional world that will one day be theirs. These events and presentations tie in with the School s major themes and with current partnerships: colloquia, study days, lectures and exhibitions fuel a very full calendar. The exhibitions of student work graduation projects, travel drawings, studio course material, etc. are high points in the life of the academic community. The School is concerned to offer students the possibility of advance contact with their future profession through talks, exhibitions and encounters. Since 2012 ENSA-PB has been home to an architecture school for children, organised by the Council for Architecture, Urbanism and the Environment (CAUE) in Paris. In addition, the opening up of classes in the history of architecture and the visual arts, in particular to members of the public has met with steadily increasing success. Publications are encouraged and appear regularly: groups of graduation projects, for example, and research laboratory results. Student initiatives are rewarding and productive and receive the School s backing. In addition to the association Asso B, which coordinates paid work by students in relevant fields, the Bellasso Association contributes to student life by organising extracurricular, cultural, sporting and fun activities, as well as running a cooperative. Melting Potes, its international section, looks after reception and integration of students from abroad. ENSA-PB is also home to the Bellastock Association, whose activities extend well beyond the School itself. In May Bellastock organises an architecture festival that attracts several thousand students from every architecture school in France, as well as from architecture and art schools in other countries. Involving public and private sector partners, the festival is an all-year-round affair in terms of its lectures and preliminary and experimental projects, and culminates in a travelling exhibition. Bellastock also organises or takes part in events outside the Ile-de-France area, as well as in Germany, China, Chile and other countries. For the latest ENSAPB news: or Made in Vitrolles Sylvain Adenot

10 The site Jean-Noël Pignet 60 Boulevard de la Villette: the former Diderot technical high school The site the School has occupied since September 2009 brings with it a duty to memory. In 1873 the City of Paris had created a model vocational school for training workers and management in trades relating to wood, electricity and, later, electrical engineering. The nascent Third Republic was out to offer the working classes of the Goutte d Or, La Villette, Charonne and Belleville neighbourhoods basic trade training and so develop a new kind of worker who would master his profession through the knowledge he had been provided with, so that he would no longer be simply a useful producer, but a real contributor to progress. This establishment would later become the Lycée Technique Diderot France s first technical high school, offering preparatory courses for the National Schools of Art and Design. In 1995 it moved to Rue David d Angers. Very much part of the city on its L-shaped plot, the school had two entrances, one on Boulevard de la Villette and the other on the small Rue Burnouf. Its seven buildings, dating from 1873 to 1933, surrounded three courtyards; the site is a fine example of the French rationalist architecture of the late 19th century and the beginnings of functionalism in the first half of the 20th. On July 9, 2001 the Paris City Council decided to allocate the establishment to the Ministry of Culture, on the condition that it should be occupied by an architecture school for at least the next fifty years. Prior to this the Ile-de-France Region had agreed to hand over control of the site to the City. Setting up and moving in Design matters were entrusted to architect Jean-Paul Philippon and the Ingérop design studio, winners of a competition held in July The building permit was issued in April 2004 and work lasted from 2005 to The schedule had been drawn up on a participatory basis. The first detailed drawings had been carried out by a team of undergraduates under the supervision of two teachers, and the project and its implementation were presented to the neighbourhood committee. The architect deliberately limited demolition (4,000 m²) in favour of rehabilitation (7,000 m²) and new construction (7,600 m²), the aim being to make the most of the site s creative potential and integrate the project into the city by harmonising history, heritage and modernity. The cost of the first tranche of works, including architect s fees, was 46.85m. Funding was provided by the Ministry of Culture and Communications and the State-Region Planning Contract. These new premises meant an enormous improvement in working conditions for the students. Music for the School A creation by Michel Aubry as part of the 1% for art scheme Thirty-three sounds in the form of twelve pentagons were embedded in the floor of the central lobby. Four basic areas were chosen. At floor level a single, continuous design provides a unified reading of the itinerary running from the Villette courtyard, to the south, to the Burnouf courtyard in the north, via the central lobby and the garden. The pentagons are visual representations of the pentachords, which correspond to the five-note musical scales of the instrument s right and left hands. Area: some statistics A total area of 14,600 m² for, overall, 9,540 m² of usable surface, excluding circulation areas and utility spaces. A library of 1,000 m²; 5,500 m² for teaching, including 3 lecture theatres, 15 classrooms, 13 architecture studios and 6 workshops for the visual arts: woodwork, printing, sculpture, multimedia, photography and cinema, drawing and painting; 1,000 m² for the reception area, exhibition space, student associations and the cafeteria; 800 m² for the research laboratory; and 700 m² of office space. Facilities The library of over 900 m² provides 100 workspaces, 20 computer stations with printing and digitisation facilities, and more than 20,000 items books, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, journals, videos, projects, theses available for loan. Some of the latter old books and the Bernard Huet collection are quite unique. A materials library offers solutions to environmental issues and alerts students to the way materials are made and the importance of the way they are worked on. The library is open 44 hours a week, from Monday to Saturday. It is complemented by the Roger-Henri Guerrand Centre the Ipraus documentation facility which offers over 5,500 documents relating to the laboratory s research: periodicals, books, research reports, theses and proceedings of colloquia and seminars bearing on architecture, urban planning and relevant branches of sociology. Available to students on a guided self-service basis, the modelling workshop is equipped with numerous mini-machine tools enabling work on different materials. Its digital area is home to a 3D printer and a laser cutter. The wood, furniture and construction workshop is mainly used for classes, but can be availed of outside teaching hours and has all the facilities needed for carpentry and cabinetmaking. There are also workshops specifically designed and equipped for the visual arts: photography, printmaking, video and sculpture. Various computer stations, dedicated or self-service, are available for students, who can also connect their own computers to the School s network. A reprographics room enables printing of plans, etc. The School also possesses a former printing works of 1,200 m², now transformed into architecture workshops for students, at 46 Boulevard de la Villette.

11 Professional integration Since 2009 ENSA-PB has been home to a professional integration observatory whose aims are to record students study background, measure their levels of professional integration and the time taken, analyse integration processes in terms of category, remuneration, company type and choice of location, and note the range of activities taken up. Thus the School runs regular surveys of its new graduates. The most recent, in 2013, showed that most ADE (state degree) architects and HMONP graduates had found employment. 10% of research graduates were in search of work whether or not they had found a first job while 4% were continuing their training via a doctorate, DSA or Master s and were not practising professionally. Setting aside this latter group, 85% of all graduates had found work in under 6 months and 95% in less than a year. For the previous survey the figures were 87% and 96% respectively. Finding a job seems to be taking longer, in particular for the ADE group: 76% of HMONP graduates found work in less than 3 months, while the proportion of ADE graduates for the same period was 48%.

12 Support ENSA-PB You can support the Paris-Belleville National School of Architecture through donations or allocation of your taxe d apprentissage. The taxe d apprentissage The taxe d apprentissage is a funding mechanism for initial technological and professional training. It is compulsory for commercial, industrial and trade businesses with salaried staff and is related to Company Tax. The company pays the tax to an official collection body (OCTA) and can stipulate the beneficiaries. Otherwise the collection body makes the choice. ENSA-PB is entitled to receive the taxe d apprentissage for the categories C senior management and B middle management, and cumulatively. Each year the taxe d apprentissage helps ENSA-PB to extend its architectural research, maintain the quality of its software and teaching equipment, add to its library and assist students with educational travel in France and the rest of the world. As ENSA-PB partners, contributing companies are kept up to date on events at the School exhibitions, talks, colloquia, publications, etc. as well as internships and job opportunities. Contact Catherine Karoubi tel fax catherine.karoubi@paris-belleville.archi.fr The taxe d apprentissage is the only tax which you have the freedom to allocate. By designating ENSA-PB as a beneficiary you contribute directly to the training of the architects who tomorrow will be helping meet the needs of our living environment. Thus you become a partner in the education of highly qualified specialists sensitive to present and future issues and responsible in the exercise of their profession. Action photo Making of

13 Anne Chatelut, Jean-Pierre Fontaine, Didier Gauducheau, Jean-Noel Pignet