The French section is conceptual and contemplative. It asserts the vital role of thinking in design and the importance of the connection with the written word as a way of understanding the world. It wishes to distance itself from noise, magic bullets and technical pyrotechnics, to reveal instead another aspect of design, through the dimension of the object which it houses: the newly-built, virgin surface, devoid of sensational devices, represents the moment at which the design project is born. It is as fragile and shifting as Nature, as embodied by the selected works.

When tackling complex projects dealing with environmental and human issues, design research needs to operate on different timescales to think through prospective transformations. This doesn’t change the nature of the discipline but rather expands its issues, its missions and its methods. The designers, architects and town planners working in these areas develop other practices: they become textual, experimental, anthropological, filmic, digital; they can be deployed in situ or in the laboratory. They are firstly based around collection, observation and research, whether in the public or independent, private or academic spheres. They extend periods of reflection in higher education institutes, art colleges and university faculties. They do not change the face of design, but they alter the paradigms of production. They no longer supply the marketplace, they provide food for thought for future design approaches.