R-Urban English

[April 2019]

R-Urban is proud to be one of the projects featured in the international exhibition « Critical Care – Architecture for a broken planet », currently taking place in Vienna. The exhibition will open on Thursday 25th of April and will run until September 2019. A book of the same name has also been published at the M.I.T. Press to showcase the 21 case studies on display.

Excerpt : “The exhibition ‘Critical Care’ is a call for a new approach, for careful architecture and urban planning. 21 current examples from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, The United States and Latin America prove that architecture and urban development must not be subject to the dictates of capital and the exploitation of resources and labour.”

A great moment of suspense Wednesday, August 1 during the ultimate test: the removal of the soil that held until then the vault of the bread and pizza oven! The month of participatory construction has proved itself: the dome of the oven is absolutely solid!

Le Tour Alternatiba stopped at the Agrocité of Bagneux on Friday 08 June! Inhabitants, associations, elected officials and cyclists were present to celebrate this event. On the program: associative stands on ecological and social initiatives, projection and debates, bicycle repair workshop, concert and multiple exchanges on common themes!

A big thank you to CRAC, Bagneux Environnement, Mairie de Bagneux et Alternatives ValléedelaBièvre for their participation and help!

Despite of the cold weather, we kept on working at the construction site of the Agrocité in Agnettes!
Last wednesday we built a dry-stone wall consisting out of reused stones which we had collected from different construction sites in the surrounding area.

From June 4 to 7, the beekeeping season officially began at Agrocité, with initiation workshops into the arts and lives of bees!  Workshops were run by Alain, a local beekeeper who has developed a small apiary, allowing interested inhabitants to learn and practice with him.

Workers, the queen, drone, swarming, queen cells, nectar, pollen, honey, propolis are all a part of what keeps bees busy and what nourishes our planet… It is in a spirit of respect for the bee and their needs that is crucial to beekeeping, as Alain has instilled in us. We thank him and invite interested parties to make themselves known because the magic of beekeeping has only just begun!

Agrocité has become new home to a collection of beautiful chickens and busy bees!

Eight chickens have recently inhabited the coop located towards the back of Agrocité. As you can see from the pictures below, these chickens are no ordinary chickens! They come in different shapes and sizes, colours and textures-  some feathered and some fluffy, some with hair like mohawks while others with hair on feet!

The three hens pictured below arrived on the 12th of May and have already began laying beautiful eggs (which are for sale at agrocité’s non-consumerist shop selling delicious local produce)!

The other five chickens (pictured below)  arrived a week later and are younger in age, meaning they havent began laying and are still a bit shy in their new home. These chickens were given to us by a local chicken appreciation society who will soon hold an educational workshop to teach us about our new feathery friends, including how to take care of them, their different personalities (what they like and dont like), the different breeds of chickens as well as answer any questions you might have!

Keep an eye and ear out for the chicken workshop- date is soon to be announced!

The other, less cuddly but nonetheless important, residents of Agrocité are the bees! Given to us by Alan the local beekeeper, this swarm of bees have been busy settling into their new surroundings, tasting the springtime flowers and making delicious honey! More hives are to arrive in the coming weeks.

We have built an area so you can come and watch the bees do what they do from a safe enclosure, while you are free to enter the chicken coop and say hi to our new feathered friends!

See you soon!

Agrocité is coming to life! We are finally using the building for one of its original purposes: as a greenhouse!

Currently growing is a selection of squash, zucchini, tomatoes, cabbage and lettuce! With new seeds sprouting each day, you can really watch life unfurl before your eyes..

On the 4-5^th of April, R-Urban was host to the Life + Platform meeting on Urban Resilience. This meeting brought together practitioners from around Europe working to address urban environmental challenges within their local cities. As recipients of the European Union’s Life + funding, the organisation’s share a common stake in the innovation of resilient approaches to sustainable cities, particuarly their adaptability to climate change and socio-political change. The meeting was divided into themeatic workshops around infrastructure and planning, waste management and resource management, with presentations from each project representative on their specific areas. In the field of infrastructure and planning, we heard from Caroline Bragg from GroundWork on climate proofing social housing landscapes in the UK; Florencio Conde on sustainable environmental balances in the recovery of the natural peri-urban area of ‘Las Arcillas’ in Tereul, Spain; Isabelle Chatoux from Yvelines on green planning for the SeineCityPark, Chanteloup Loop, Paris; and Outi Salminen on creating an urban oases in Finland: Shaping a sustainable future through environmentally functional landscape features.

The second workshop focused on addressing waste management and recycling at different scales and how this contributes to an increased territorial resistance. Presentations were given by Clare Standish and Sarah Melor from UP and Forward, an initiative based in the Greater Manchester focused urban participation in the reuse and recycling of household waste and development of communications; Philippe Naudet from the European Week for Waste Reduction, based in Brussels and operating on a European scale in the promotion of waste prevention.

The last workshop focused on natural resource management and renewable energy production in the urban frame. This theme was explored with presentations by Nathalie Briche from MAC EAU, a localised initiative working to reduce the household consumption of drinking water through the implementation and evaluation of integrated measures in Geronde, France; Beatrix Dold from EKO LIFE discussing their approach to promoting sustainable lifestyles to encourage energy autonomy in Vorarlberg, Austria; and Laurence Caille from CLIMATE (Changing Living Modes: Acting in our Territory for the Environment) presenting their work on fostering behavioural change around energy and waste awareness in Essonne, France.

The two day seminar provided a much needed platform to share the successes and challenges facing each project, as well as providing the space to talk and learn about different practices and operational tools surrounding participatory approaches and local governance in the creation of resilient projects. On the second day, visitors were invited to learn about R-Urban through short presentations by local and institutional stakeholders and gain a perspective into the life around R-Urban.

In Agrocité, our plots are surrounded by hedges and alleys home to many small plants that we do not always know. These can be edible, medicinal and beautiful plants… They also tell us the characteristics of our land … yet most commonly, we refer to them as “weeds!”

Sylvie, host Nature Center, will teach us a little more about the flora that surrounds us!