Entre détails et diagrammes : une conception ouverte en habitat populaire

Abstract

The article analyses open design practices in popular housing, which take existing architectural details as a starting point for action strategies with resident communities. The detail is no longer seen as the outcome of a convergent design process, but rather as the starting point of a procedural, incremental, and collaborative practice. The contribution focuses in particular on a revealing case: the rehabilitation project of the Beutre housing estate (Mérignac, France), conducted through an experimental action-research PhD, using long-term immersion protocols close to the residents. From a sociotechnical perspective, this experience activated a dual function of the detail—both as a tool for architectural investigation and as an operational design scale. The transition between these two uses—observation and transformation—is made possible through a diagrammatic approach to design, using dynamic tools (serial processes, scripting, surveys, diagrams, mappings). Three types of collaborative arrangements around detail in popular housing are identified: a shift from knowledge to recognition, forms of material and symbolic repair, and the possibility for architects to master an open technique of improvisation.

Photo: Série de portraits des habitant·es. (Howa, 2022 : 379)