R-Urban English

On Saturday 26th of October, there was a visit to the Recyclab, an R-Urban unit built in 2012 at the same time as the Agrocité de Colombes and which, since 2017, has been living again on the site of the temporary occupation “Vive les Groues” in Nanterre, managed by the association Yes We Camp.
Built in 2012 along the Boulevard d’Archères in Colombes, the Recyclab is a unit dedicated to recycling and reusing waste on a local scale, as well as developing eco-construction and sharing know-how. In 2017, the building is forced to leave the commune of Colombes and is therefore bequeathed to Yes We Camp.
Built from wooden containers and modules, it could be dismantled and reassembled in October 2017 on the Groues site in Nanterre. Since 2017, Yes We Camp has been developing a temporary occupation for 8 years with the aim of setting up local partnerships and supporting the transformation of this neighborhood.
Thank you to Yes We Camp for welcoming us!

Construction of the pergola, retrospective! 100% re-used wood, elbow grease, some bean seeds that will provide shade under the pergola! We started with a lot of motivation and now already two sessions of pallet workshops have occurred! While waiting for the luxuriant vegetation and the planting of the vine, a sewing workshop to make patchwork canvases will allow us to shade the pergola a little this summer!

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.

Our first 100% recycled tricycle! Come to try it on 21 February at the Repair Cafe!

RECYCLAB will be having an open door event on Friday and Saturday the 4-5 July at Colombes, boulevard d’Achères.
This Eco- Solidarity Platform introduces new strategies for the revitalisation of urban waste through ecological and socially responsible production. It is a space of co-production and work sharing between ‘makers’ of any kind (designers, architects, tinkerers, students, technologists) and a network of local actors. The space is equipped with power tools, a fablab, kitchen, offices and a large terrace under the canopy of a row of trees.

AGROCITE  will also host open door events on the 5-6 July, 4-12 Rue Jules Michelet.
Come to see the garden, participate in guided walks, ateliers, discussions and score yourself a bargain in the grand trash and treasure market where nothing is lost, all is transformed! In this marketplace the currency is ‘trash’ and one person’s trash is another’s treasure! Bring along an object, whether it be a special recipe, crafts, clothes, furniture or something you’ve baked, and exchange it for another.

Last week, Agrocité was host to a cooking atelier ran by Chef Jean Jacques. He taught us how to cook with a whole chicken, leaving none to waste! He also taught us how to use over-ripe and old lettuce in tasty new ways and the arts of food decoration! Many thanks to the chef!

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.

This Saturday, it was the second workshop session DIY in the greenhouse.
After the last large cleaning workshop, we now have room for a new layout!
We worked with the stock materials (bottom plot) that we collected in the surrounding areas during the year. It is basically reclaimed wood in various forms: different types of pallets, battens, wooden furniture recovered from the street …

Thus, we have improved the high seedlings table to make it waterproof. We used a variety of glaziers (that is to say, designed to carry vertical windows) given by a neighboring company, O2 Seine Fenêtres, located avenue de Stalingrad, to build a storage for garden tools. A chair that would be discarded was repaired and modified with elements found in the stock: a drawer below the seat as small storage and a coat for children, which solidifies the broken case. Finally, a micro-stove was built of brick and mud, just in time to heat water for the mint tea!

This week, we had a parade of bicycles in the garden. Within the Mechanical Sundays event offered by the association “Colombes à vélo”, bocycle tinkering specialists offered their services to anyone who wanted to learn how to repair his bike. In the garden, it was a pretty sight: the neighborhood kids with wrenches, gardeners repairing their bikes, a team of residents and AAA members who attempted a first test water pump driven by a pedal mechanism. Stay tuned … Thus, ten bikes were repaired, belonging to the neighborhood and elsewhere, who went away with a smile. In addition, in the shared garden, gardeners were busy weeding, composting, planting winter vegetables. In parallel, Yvon Pradier, from Nature Ecology, worked on the farm to prepare us a quality earthworm vermicompost. The school garden has also received an overhaul, necessary because it was temporarily crowded after the start of construction.