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The Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation held a week-long job-shadowing (observation of work) of the Les Ateliers association in Cergy, near Paris, which for 40 years has been engaged in urban analysis and education towards the creation of inclusive, green and open cities. 

Les Ateliers - the international workshops of planning and urban design - in its own words, "aims to develop the collective creation of ideas that address the challenges and processes of everyday urban planning and design by promoting a process of collective and multidisciplinary work that creates innovative and illustrative proposals related to urban design and spatial development." 

Observing the organization's work was all the more crucial because it offers workshops in the form of mobilities. This was a unique approach in terms of education, which the Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation itself is currently benefiting from thanks to support from the European Union. During our stay, we learned how mobility is managed, how candidates are selected, how the methodology is tailored to the country, and how the organization strives to meet its program goals. 
Les Ateliers educates in a forward-looking way, very much based on collectivity and interdisciplinarity. The association organizes annual multidisciplinary workshops open to sociologists, urban planners, architects, artists, and people interested in activities related to transforming cities. Les Ateliers establishes relationships in advance with city managers around the world to conduct workshops directed at exploring and trying to present a possible solution to a local problem that the city faces. Typically, these activities are also at the intersection of many areas - e.g., running urban gardens, managing green waste, transforming energy. In addition, the association seeks to act locally in its neighbourhood, organizing workshops in and around Paris. As an organization with a history of more than 40 years, with around 200 male and female members, many are involved in the co-creation of the methodology, offering their expertise or participation as teachers/lecturers/leaders in some of the workshops.

^{photo: author's archive}

^{photo: author's archive}

The Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation has gained many valuable ideas for customized educational methodologies while getting to know an organization open to future cooperation. We have already invited members of the Foundation's staff who did not participate in the mobility to meetings with Les Ateliers online for the moment, but in the future, there may be a renewed form of mobility. 

In addition, Les Ateliers, which significantly values local activity and collaboration, invited us to walk along the Axe Majeur project in Cergy, the so-called "new town" in the Paris region. The work, designed by Dani Karavan, was first conceived in the 1980s, and since then, more stops have been added to the immersive, meditative design of the land art stretching over 3 km (the project still needs to be completed). For the guided tour, the collective invited Michel Jaouën, the urban planner responsible for implementing the work and planning Cergy itself, a unique opportunity to exchange expertise.

^{photo: author's archive}

Further reading:

Equal spaces in the city – Architektoniczki explore Stockholm

Architektoniczki in Berlin – gender issues in urban studies

Architektoniczki exploring feminist urban planning in Spain!