STUDY DAY ON THE ISSUES AND PROJECTS OF LA FABRIQUE DU PRÉ, RELATED TO EDUCATION Organized by the association le Pré – Experimental Rural Park In collaboration with the Farm of Happiness With the support of the DRAC Ile-de-France
In partnership with the Prefecture of Hauts-de-Seine, Paris La Défense, the Conseil Départemental des Hauts-de-Seine, Ville de Nanterre, the Fondation de France and the Société Pierre de Beauchamps. Under the sponsorship and in the presence of Gilles Clément
CONTEXT AND ISSUES
The association Le Pré – Parc rural expérimental was created in October 2023 to take over the mission that Paris La Défense, the Prefecture of Hauts-de-Seine, the Departmental Council of Hauts-de-Seine and the City Hall of Nanterre, entrusted to Patrick Bouchain, Grand prix de l'Urbanisme 2009, concerning the prefiguration of the development and collegial management of the place called «le Champ de la Garde», final phase of the Zone d'aménagement concerté-Zac Seine-Arche).
The association Le Pré, now manager of the Field, plans to take over and amplify the legacy of La Ferme du Bonheur, its historical pioneer, in terms of ecology, agriculture, community work, research and training.
It is in this perspective that the Pré will celebrate the National Days of Architecture - JNA in Nanterre on Friday, October 18, with the support of the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs - Drac Ile-de-France, renewing the partnership initiated during the 2023 edition of this event. The landscaper and gardener, Gilles Clément, member of the Comité des sages du Pré, will sponsor the event. This study day will be extended on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 by two days of «school in action» organized by the Ferme du Bonheur through presentations, open worksites and field visits.
This year, the Pré intends to continue and consolidate the educational projects led by the Ferme du Bonheur through a study day entitled «L'École du Parc rural expérimental», dedicated to teaching architecture, urbanism and landscape by the field.
The Field of Guard, which civil society has been taking care of since 2008, reveals the need to rethink the place of life and biodiversity in our territories, to adapt our ways of inhabiting them, in the face of contemporary climate, economic and social challenges, but also to train in new professions and citizen engagement. The Farm of Happiness leads to the field a great diversity of ecological and cultural actions: theater, music, experimental agriculture, scientific research, social and educational actions,... The Ferme du Bonheur is a school of living by doing, and welcomes hundreds of students and their teachers each year from all over France and abroad. She has also created close links with the anthropology department of the University of Paris-Nanterre, of which she is a neighbour.
To promote and pursue these educational activities, Le Pré is organizing a day of surveying, meetings and debates on 18 October in collaboration with the national graduate schools of architecture, landscape and design as well as the University Paris-Nanterre. The Champ de la garde was more particularly the field of study, during the year 2023-2024, of two schools of architecture in Paris: Ecole nationale supérieure d'architecture - Ensa Paris-Malaquais and Ensa Paris-Belleville.
The National Architecture Days 2024 at Le Pré à Nanterre will highlight the work of these students but also initiate the pedagogical projects of the year 2024-2025: continuation of work with ENSA Paris-Malaquais, launch of a workshop with the research group Design des territoires of the Ecole nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (ENSAD), presentation of collaborative projects with the Higher Diploma of applied arts - DSAA Alternatives urbaines of the Lycée Adolphe Chérioux de Vitry (94), with the Ensa Paris la Villette associated with the University La Sapienza in Rome, and with the primary and secondary schools of the territory.
Based on the work of architecture students, this day will be devoted to the more general questions raised by pedagogies outside the walls, situational and experimental.
The first part will be devoted to the pedagogical contribution of field approaches, especially for architecture students, whose research-like practice is the best way to be connected to reality. At the Champ de la Garde school, what do urban scales, the emergence of life and the landscape dimension shake up in courses generally centred on buildings or built plots? How can the field, in turn, transform to include transdisciplinary methods of the humanities and social sciences, from which it already borrows observation and documentation tools?
A second phase will focus more on the effects of these pedagogies for project stakeholders (elected officials and municipal departments, project management and project management in particular). The confrontation on the ground, the meeting with inhabitants, elected officials, planners and professionals generate fruitful friction between the duty of imagination and regulatory constraints, between a pedagogical vision and a political vision. Both nevertheless share a certain relationship to utopia, but how does one infuse the other and vice versa?
Finally, how can an experimental agricultural field and a landscape project, by definition unforeseen and infinite in time, allow us to reflect on the possible – and desirable – shift from a planning policy to a policy of conservation; from an architect-artist to an accompanying architect; from a “landscape of domestication” to a “landscape of maintenance”, understood in the noble sense of a permanent inscription?
In order to build collegially the pedagogical programming at the Champ de la Garde, this day will create the conditions for a dialogue between teachers, students and field actors, put into perspective by thinkers and specialists of these situated forms of teaching.
This day of studies will give rise to a publication, the second issue of «Journal de la Fabrique du Pré», which will summarize the exchanges while offering additional unpublished texts.
The event will lay the foundation stone of the School of the Experimental Rural Park, in the continuity of work carried out for years by Patrick Bouchain to make school by the project, concretized by the University Foraine (2012-2014), the “Permit to do” (2017), the Proof by 7 (since 2018) and documented in the online resource center School of the field (since 2021).
FORWARD PROGRAMME
Locations: in Nanterre, at La contemporaine (184 Cr Nicole Dreyfus), at Ferme du Bonheur (220 avenue de la République) and at Champ de la Garde (18, rue Anatole France) 9:00 - 9:30 am: Visit of the exhibition "I will follow you to the edge of your smell Where the light tears a little" Julie C.Fortier & Gabrielle Herveet (associate curator: Clara Muller) at the Terrasse – Espace d'art de Nanterre
9.30-11 am Urban walk "The Field of the Guard, a key link in a future 'Green Delta'"
From the terraces (departure in front of the entrance of the art center «La Terrasse») to the fringes of the park of the Chemin de l'île, through the interchange.
Guided tour by representatives of the City of Nanterre, Paris La Défense, and Nadia Herbreteau (Ilex, MOE paysagiste), Manuel Moussu (Grand Paris Sud Ouest, former director of urban planning and development of the City of Nanterre), Eric Goulouzelle (Director of parks, landscapes and environment of the Hauts-de-Seine departmental council).
11.00-12.30 : Visit of the exhibition «l'École du Parc rural expérimental», at La contemporaine:

• Welcoming the educational community by le Pré, represented by Bernard Latarjet, Patrick Bouchain and his local partners
• Introduction by Gilles Clément
• Presentation of the work of students during the 2023-2024 school year and the “Green Delta” development project. Guided tour of the exhibition for elected officials and local partners by Ilex, teachers and their students.
  1-2 pm : Lunch at the Farm of Happiness
  2.30-5.30 pm : Presentations and debates on the pedagogical issues of «l'École du Parc rural expérimental», at La contemporaine (detailed program to come)
  PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS
  University of Paris-Nanterre, Ecole nationale supérieure d'architecture (ENSA) Paris Malaquais, Ensa Paris Belleville, Ensa Paris la Villette/ Université La Sapienza de Rome, École des Arts décoratifs de Paris, Master 2 common at Ecole Boulle, Duperré Paris, Estienne School and the Ecole supérieure des arts appliqués et des métiers d'art (Ensaama), University of Sheffield (UK), Graduate Diploma in Applied Arts (DSAA) Urban Alternatives (Lycée Adolphe Chérioux in Vitry - 94), Collège Jean-Baptiste Clément in Dugny (93)...
  In the continuity of this study day, the Farm of Happiness Organizes two days of presentations, field visits and open sites:
  Dates: Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 October
  Program and booking by October 13: http://www.lafermedubonheur.fr/2024/jna/