2009

Utopian urbanism workshop

Mazières-en-Gâtine

Mazières en Gâtine is a village in the Deux-Sèvres region with 1000 inhabitants. Freed from heavy road traffic in the village since the opening of a detour in November 2008, the municipality wanted to rethink its development and urban planning.

To carry out its urban requalification study, the municipality chose to combine the skills usually required for this type of mission (architecture, urban planning and landscape) with a participatory and cultural process, in order to involve the population of the village in this dynamic and to feed the study with their proposals.

The proposed approach was integrated into the urban study carried out by the Traverses agency. It combined several actions :

A collective performance to engage the process and mobilize : realization of 3 photos of the inhabitants reappropriating the public space of the village.
Walks to locate and share observations.
Workshops to imagine proposals.
Exhibitions to give the work back to the whole population.
A concert of improvised music.