Unisson(s) movement - Towards a Low-Carbon and Organic Architecture
Of all the positive developments taking place at a rapid pace, the Unisson(s) movement aims to encourage an architecture that serves as the basis for the evolution of new challenges faced by the city and a whole new culture to be shared.
This itinerant movement brings together all the professions involved in low-carbon and organic architecture, revisiting the relationship with nature and the needs of each individual, through many playful and effective formats.
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Institut Français pour la Performance du Bâtiment (IFPEB) Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Claire Last name of representative: Chabrol Gender: Female Nationality: France Function: architect and program manager Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: 7 rue Blanche Town: Paris Postal code: 75009 Country: France Direct Tel:+33 7 65 24 10 45 E-mail:claire.chabrol@a4mt.com Website:https://www.ifpeb.fr/
UNISSON(S) is a movement led by A4MT and the French Institute for Building Performance (IFPEB), which aims to bring together all the professions involved in low-carbon architecture, revisiting the relationship with nature and the needs of each individual.
The ambition
•To explore the solutions and ideas, that make the connection between construction, carbon and nature, in order to reflect on a new architectural shape, in line with the new french environmental regulation “RE2020”. In other words, how do we draw architecture with this new low-carbon grammar?
•To inspire, through a new imagination around the low-carbon transition, a collective desire to evolve and territorialize practices.
•To gather around the architect and the architecture, federate and promote all the stakeholders of the construction sector committed to a decarbonized architecture.
An itinerant movement
•The first step of the journey started at the Maison de l’Architecture in Paris, the 16th of November of 2022.
•Since then, Unisson(s) is itinerating in all regions of France, adapting to the local characteristics of each territory.
•The movement aims to reach a European scale, to gather the same architecture transformation ecosystem in several countries.
Formats
•A manifesto, with a political purpose of transforming practices, and aiming to provide to public authorities and landowners the awareness around the necessary ecological transition.
•An awareness and information for all the actors of construction through :
o A documentary film
o A book
o Conferences, with a variety of relevant stakeholders.
o Visits of projects and actors commited in the environmental transition.
•Collective intelligence into action through :
o Co-design workshops,
o Website, that provides tools and resources
All of these devices are proposed during the various Unisson(s) itineraries and will adapt to every local specificities and thanks to participants feedbacks.
Movement
architecture
low-carbon
nature
call to action
Our key objectives in terms of sustainability are :
• To raise awareness towards the inescapable need to measure social and environmental impact of each pencil stroke and to preserve all of our resources.
• To accelerate practices transformation towards an organic and low-carbon architecture.
• To question the architecture that results from these changes.
Our action strategy :
• To raise awareness of all, thanks to the formats described above, which are productions based on 15 years of IFPEB and A4MT experience. Our works and researches gather concrete and technical results that survey a large scop of construction themes (materials, energy, uses, mobility, social aspects).
• To use collective intelligence to move forward a beautiful low-carbon architecture, integrating nature.
It is exemplary thanks to :
• Its various formats that can be distributed everywhere, physically and digitaly.
• Its adaptation to specificities of each territory.
The ecological and social responsibility of architecture cannot be separated from beauty, which helps us to live better. That is why the movement aims to think collectively this new architectural shape and the future appearance of our cities, in accordance with the environmental objectives.
For instance, through the film and the book, the content shows architectural approaches integrating the idea of low-carbon and bringing out a new aesthetic. They offer a constellation of French cases and practitioners recognized by the local and international scene. They present the contexts, discourses, construction sites, life cycles and daily life of buildings and cities.
In the co-design workshops, the aesthetic aspect of the buildings is questioned. During the first one in the Maison de l’Architecture Ile-de-France, architectural thematics has been explored such as facades, compacity, morphology, materials…
Environmental equality cannot be achieved without social equality. Therefore, this notion is included in our reflection process since the beginning, and especially through topics addressed during co-design workshops.
The movement travels in places where architecture is shown, told and debated, where the solutions and ideas for a renewed architectural style are questioned, for an acceleration of practice change, breaking up with “before 2020”.
Globally, the movement welcome all type of people, among others architects, landscapers, builders, designers, elected officials, students, and all the professions of planning and the city.
In order to move from the presentation to something concrete and to deploy collective intelligence, the co-design workshops are specially dedicated to architects, project owners, design offices, technical controllers, landscapers, insurers, sociologists, philosophers, actors of sustainable construction and biodiversity.
Conferences, the film and the book are accessible to all.
Led by a national association, IFPEB, Unisson(s) has links with many partners that offer local, regional and national roots, particularly useful during its journey. This movement is presented and is taking action in the following locations :
- Houses of architecture and CAUE* (CAUE : Council for Architecture, Urbanism and Environment)
- Building and landscaping trade shows
- Political events
- Public companies
- Private companies
Unisson(s) is the first movement that allows owners of project, design offices, and conceptors, to work together in order to accelerate practices transformation towards a low carbon and organic architecture.
Workshops and conferences are an opportunity to share experiences around the learning of low-carbon architecture, create a collective dynamic around the need to transform practices and stimulate debate.
This type of movement working on those topics and combining physical and digital formats, did not exist before Unisson(s) in France.
The journey is adapted, as best as possible, to each territory characteristics.
The methodology and all the formats has been thought to be amplified and replicated :
• The journey ambition is to reach all European regions.
• The manifesto is available in English and addresses aspects found in every European country.
• The film is already subtitled in English and could be dubbed. It is segmented in chapters, that could be completed with new ones, according to local specificities or other themes.
• The book could be translated and distributed widely.
• The conferences can be organized at each step of the journey, and welcome a wide range of stakeholders.
• Co-design workshops permit to work on local issues and report local best practices.
• Tools on the website are worldwide accessible and could be completed with useful tools for every country.
• We are raising awareness among as many people as possible to disseminate and promote the low carbon architecture and the need of practices transformation.
• We are bringing together the actors of construction, planning and landscaping to rethink project methods and design in order to preserve all resources, to limit the impact of our action and revitalize biodiversity.
• We want to synthesize how architecture is thought and designed with this new low-carbon grammar.
As the movement development is permitted by a sponsoring system, every new support allows us to organize new stages of the journey, to produce new formative documents and tools.
Co-design workshops permit to work on local issues and report local best practices, around low-carbon and organic architecture, landscape and city planning.
The thematics are numerous : local bio-based and geo-based materials, local and renewable energies, integration of nature, water management, adaptation to climate change, bioclimatism, intensification of uses, morphology optimisation, natural ventilation, rehabilitation, reused materials, etc.
All of the movement actions mean to promote circular economy, reduce greenhouse gas consumption in the building sector, reduce the waste from construction activity, preserve biodiversity and guarantee the quality of life in our cities.
We have already received lots of positive feedbacks from participants that confort us to continue and develop this kind of formats and meetings between actors who do not usually investigate these kinds of topics in order to change their practices. Producing together makes lot of sense for participants.
They also bring many ideas of future productions to explore and issues to be addressed in future workshops.
Then, we are looking forward to continuing the journey each two months and bringing up best practices.
By creating a collective emulation and giving tools, we want to train to respond to these challenges as many persons as possible.
Our objectives for 2022 and 2023 :
- 1000 trained persons, through co-workshops, presentations, visits…
- 30 schools connected to Unisson(s)
- 10 meetings
Among others, the book decrypts the French environmental regulation, presents levers for low-carbon design and examples of architectural, urban or landscape achievements. It is a combination of hand drawing illustrations, schemes, photographs and texts.
Levers for low-carbon and organic design are based on real and concrete feedbacks produced by IFPEB and A4MT. In line with this work, Unisson(s) proposes to develop competences around architecture and carbon neutrality :
- Consume more and better materials
- Consume more and better energy
- Intensifications of uses
- Design with nature.
