FESTIVAL DES ARCHITECTURES VIVES 2011

Montpellier, September 15th, 2010

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS FESTIVAL OF LIVELY ARCHITECTURES

On the occasion to the 6th FESTIVAL OF THE LIVELY ARCHITECTURES in MONTPELIER, Champ Libre association throws a call for applications to realize 10 interventions.

The Festival is part of the city heart of Montpellier; it will take place in the heart of Montpellier and more specifically in the courtyards of certain town house. At the same time it will be proposed a course to the visitors, goes out of architectural discovery in the city heart.

So, Montpellier’s FAV objective is on one hand, to open to inhabitants, during the festival these symbolic places and on the other hand - thanks to creators teams intervention which will present a specific work to every place - to reveal an intimate relationship between contemporary architecture, installation and patrimonial site.

2011 festival theme: the Encounter
Team selection on file: applications files have to reach at the latest on December 15th, 2010 at midnight, French time (GMT+1 / date of emission of mail being valid.)

Constitution of applications file:
+ Team presentation, members, with Curriculum vitae of every member
+ Full of imagery references of architectural realizations, installations, competition …
+ Note of intention towards the Festival of the Lively Architectures of Montpelier and about theme: The Encounter

The consultation is opened to young architects and landscape architects

Files must reach us by e-mail to PDF format at the following address:
[email protected]

Thank you for specifying in the title of the e-mail “2011 FAV applications Montpellier”, and not to send too heavy files (maximum 10 Mo by application).


A file presenting in detail theme and technical constraints connected to the conception of an intervention (ground, exhibition, visitors, proposition of setting-up presence…) will be sent to the selected candidates. The results of the selection will be announced in the course of January.

Delivery deadline of the projects is fixed on February 15th, 2011.

The Festival will take place from 15th to 19th June 2011.
A 1 000, 00-€ TTC subsidy will be assigned to each of 10 realized projects.

A work of the 6th edition presenting the realizations will be published at the end of year 2011.

All the questions must be sent by email to Association Champ Libre
[email protected]

Site FAV: http: // favmontpellier.nerim.net

The Lively Architectures

The Lively Architecture Festival wish to answer to evolution of architectural practice which, joining all the domains related to its culture, does not any more hesitate to assert itself in its realizations. The Lively Architectures are short-lived and evolutionary by nature; they are every time punctual, registered in a short temporality and thought for a specific place.

Such a reality was increased, they are added, transform, reveal a forgotten space because invisible or on the contrary too much seen. Respectful of environment, they transfigure it in an inhabited environment where the past, the present to see even the future make only one. The Lively architectures create an environment where the imagination of each takes place. So, they have the sense of humor, as much as the humility. When we would like to freeze the architecture in the mirror of the big History and the Patrimony, the Lively Architectures prefer for their part, the privilege of the custom in the law of the author. They are copy left in their attitude and are sincerely delighted at any free and constructive reappropriation.

Refusing the unchanging, during the festival they question our daily environment. Addressing a wide public, they propose a sensory adventure, offer a moved glance. They position as a revelation. The Lively architectures are object of desire, envy and simply wish to find the sense of the pleasure of the place, the city, to offer of the sensitive and the tactile, to reposition the Man in the heart of the architecture.

For this 6th edition of the Festival of the Lively Architectures in Montpellier chosen places are in adequacy with this historic city. One of its wealth is the presence in the heart of the city of numerous town cities. Today, Montpellier in account more seventy. Number of these privates town cities and inner courtyards, are not open to the public. So, festival objective is double. On one hand open to the inhabitants these symbolic sites, make them discover places hidden from their own city. On the other hand, thanks to the intervention of the teams of creators presenting a specific work to every place, it is a question of revealing an intimate relation between contemporary architecture and patrimonial site.

In their history the courtyards , semi-private and semipublic spaces, saw attributing very diverse functions between place of representation, distribution welcome ,but today the courtyard remain uninhabited. Divested of any function, they appear as simple spaces crossed to join a private place. Forgotten, because inaccessible, or forgotten because inappropriate, these courtyard disappear little by little from a common knowledge, to see of a collective imagination. They become real forgotten spaces and nevertheless possess an appropriate specificity, playing between shadow and light, offering a possibility of glorifying these places by little thing. So, the contemporary architecture by game will reveal and will wake sleepy sites.

Lively Architectures Festival 2011
6th edition in Montpellier
The Encounter

“ENCOUNTER” n. Fate, opportunity, an arrangement to do something or meet someone at a particular time and place. Also says himself to join a person by going deliberately to the front of her…. Also says himself of two bodies contacted. “The meeting of atoms”. Definition of the Dictionary of the Académie française 8th Edition

So, The Appointment is plural in its sense and in its shape. She speaks about Men about those who live in the place, those who cross it, those who discover it, those who reinvent it, those who out of curiosity or envy meets there. Recalling the encounter of bodies, creating attractions even temporary aversion as well as frictions. The man is in the heart of this encounter. But encounter it is also the one of the architecture. The one motionless, static, unchanging glorified and admired, and the other dynamics, fluid, short-lived, changeable and creative. Crossing the materials, the shapes, the colors, respecting and revealing the case and offering a convenient environment in meets it bodies. Finally, encounter is one time and generations. The architecture becomes pretext with new encounters around an intergenerational and common object, namely a space of division, where we cross ourselves, sees it, and finally meets. Encounter of time establishes one.


So during Lively Architectures Festival, times, peoples, architectures, will be at the same time revelations, actors, and objects of The Encounter.

Elodie NOURRIGAT,
Présidente de l'Association Champ Libre