The seminar is organized by the architectural agency SCAU and Jérôme Denis.
The history of architecture is closely linked to designo, the creative concept that establishes a relationship with time and materials, driven by intention and upheld in the project. Maintenance, a mundane, endlessly repetitive activity, is at first glance the antithesis of designo. Here nothing is designed, nothing is created. Deployed in a present it contributes to thickening, maintenance cultivates the continuity of things that already exist by dealing with the ongoing transformations of matter. However, at a time of climate and environmental crisis, it seems very likely that those who practice this art of making things last have a lot to teach architects. Because they place fragility and wear at the heart of an ecology of attention that breaks with the promises of modernity, because they deploy forms of material diplomacy that do away with human pretensions to mastery and control, because they distribute responsibilities beyond the figure of the inventor, maintenance activities draw lines of flight that can help rethink architecture by considering what in it escapes the temptation of the singular creative act.
It is through this breach, which opens up to the concerns and expertise of maintenance, and in a context of profound change in the act of building, that we propose to explore and question the relationship that architecture cultivates with these common things that hold us and inhabit us, betting on a partnership approach, multidisciplinary and open to all parties involved.
Participation is free but registration is required. Please register here.
The seminar will be held in French.
2025-2026 Program
Friday, September 12, 10 a.m.–1 p.m. Venue: Césure, 13 Rue Santeuil, 75005 Paris – Room L’impasse
Here and now: time of third places
Friday, October 10, 2025, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
Attachments and heritage: figures from the ACMH
Friday, November 14, 2025, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
Building and maintaining in the bioclimatic era – Feedback (City of Paris)
Friday, December 12, 2025, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
Prescribing and maintaining in public spaces: Challenges for developers (Paris La Défense)
Friday, January 16, 2026, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
Maintain more, repair less? From words to action (Myrium)
Friday, February 6, 2026, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
What vegetation does to buildings
Friday, March 20, 2026, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
Inert but under surveillance – Fragile concrete
Friday, April 10, 2026, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
From caring for people to caring for things: hospitals, models of care
Friday, May 29, 2026, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
Airport maintenance (ADP)
Friday, June 19, 2026, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
Maintaining after disaster
Friday, July 10, 2026, 10 a.m.–1 p.m.
Social housing: the right to maintenance
Program of the sessions held in 2025
Friday March 28, 2025, 10-12am. Venue: SCAU, 35 rue Tournefort, 75005 Paris.
Friday April 11, 2025, 10am to 1pm. Venue: Mines Paris – PSL, 60 bd Saint-Michel 75006 Paris.
Maintaining in common: co-ownership beyond the infraordinary
Thursday, June 12, 5 to 7 p.m. Venue: Agence SCAU – 35 rue Tournefort, 75005 Paris.
Insurance and Maintenance: from vanishing line to breaking point