FRAC Bretagne, Rennes, France.
materials like that today. We put “smartness“ into physical terms. When you seek out physical development you discover that people are indeed looking for new materials that are a blend of different materials, in which “smartness“ can be added. Sure, but materials are clearly important, and they’re significant in view of Smart Cities and in “smart grids“. In making this happen, do you think it would be more interesting to do research as architects or drive research on a larger scale? I think it is interesting for architects to have relationships with people who think about these things. People who think about these things need architects to know what we need too, because the way architects think enables them to synthesize information in full, as it is the very principle of architecture itself. It is for this
reason that it’s interesting. Our minds work in such a way that they allow us to create “sparks“ inside our heads in relation to the project, implemented in conjunction with robotics, biotechnology, the problems of changes in daily life, the lives of young people and the elderly. Your idea of a Smart City as a city where technology can also help the elderly is intriguing. If you had examples of this, that would be great. Of course, there’s the neighborhood that I mentioned before, that I’m working on in the north of France. The city’s mayor is a member of the European Parliament; he’s involved, he’s a doctor and he’s concerned about the elderly and those who assist them. I’ve spoken with him on several occasions, and he’s said that, “There isn’t just one single kind of senior citizen, there are several classes of
them—including those who are fully mobile and autonomous and those who are not. But between these two there are many different levels, since we can live up to 100, 110 years old and we currently consider people ‘elderly’ at sixty.“ So from 60 to 100 years old there is a 40-year period that can go in any number of ways, and then there are people who at 100 years old are fully autonomous, who still get around, have full mental capacity and are healthy. But at the same time the body gets tired, which requires assistance. The second thing is that we shouldn’t be creating spaces in the city for the elderly. The idea in our neighborhood is to have people specialized in managing apartments for the elderly, so the organization and aid is there, but we won’t build a building for the elderly. We will sell multiple apartments around the neighborhood to these companies in which the elderly can be housed, and they will manage all of the apartments in order to mix the elderly population with non-elderly, therefore with families and children, to allow the city to rebuild itself as a mixed system and not a separate one. This is interesting, and it’s for this reason as well that this island (because we’re working with EDF, the power company) is going to make electric cars available to people; it’s an island, so it is closed off. It’s quite isolated and the distance between things on the island is great, so rather than use their cars there will be a dedicated spot on the island where there will be an attendant (like a hotel concierge) who can provide multiple services, such as that for electric cars. You can reserve an electric car, the attendant will send it to you, then you can take it out and be brought back home,
go around the city, etc. There is a system of services in the neighborhood simply to help people to live, because we can, and it’s exciting to think about these types of things. So as an architect you’re not worried about your future, but in principal do you think that Smart Cities can serve a function, or a role, for architects? Of course, it should be thought about, but it’s for this reason that I think more and more that architects are not just those who give things shape, but rather someone that develops intelligent “matchmaking“ and helps people live better, at least to me. Because shapes are good, but they’re not sufficient, definitely not sufficient... that is why social aspects interest me, and why large issues in science and technology—from medical to architectural—interest me, because it’s work for people.
* A leading exponent of the avantgarde architecture community, Odile Decq founded the ODBC firm with Benoït Cornette, with whom she worked until his premature death in 1998. In 1990 they designed the Banque Populaire de l’Ouest in Rennes, a building that won a number of awards and made Decq and Cornette internationally famous. Their work was crowned with the Leone d’Oro at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 1996. On Cornette’s death, Odile Decq remained alone at the helm of ODBC. She has consolidated her international profile with the success of the project for the MACRO contemporary art museum in Rome, opened in May 2010. Decq has received many important awards and is actively involved in teaching (Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris, which she headed until 2012). She is a visiting professor at a number of international universities, including Columbia University in New York.
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