The students in the 3rd year of the Information-Communication degree course, majoring in “Innovation, Design and Digital”, took part in a workshop from 7 to 9 April last, on the theme of “the revitalization of commercial wasteland in the centre of Saint-Étienne”. They were supervised in carrying out their project by Loïc Etiembre, teacher-researcher in Information and Communication Sciences (ICS) at Télécom Saint-Étienne.
What is this workshop about?
5 communication design agencies were trained by the students. They were then put in competition to respond to a fictitious call for projects within a given timeframe.
The brief for the fictitious call for projects is as follows: 5 major players in Saint Etienne (including the city of Saint Etienne, which has been awarded the Unesco Design City label, the Cité Internationale du Design, the Rues du Développement Durable association, the Lycée de Montravel and the “Coeur de Sainté” association of city centre shopkeepers) have joined forces around a dynamic policy and a common project: to encourage the revitalisation of the city centre’s economic and cultural activity, and to demonstrate to the people of Saint Etienne the richness of their heritage.
The students’ objective was therefore to design innovative mediation and mediatisation systems for the requalification of the city centre of Saint Etienne around the abandoned urban areas. Indeed, the number of closed shops in the city centre of Saint-Etienne is currently increasing, especially as they are often abandoned or out of use. It is therefore a question of finding a way to develop these commercial wastelands, which are detrimental to the public image and the vitality of the urban centre of Saint-Etienne, and in particular to the businesses in activity.
Focus on one of the completed projects
Let’s discover together the testimony of Eva, member of the “Vitamine” agency, composed of 5 students who had to answer to this fictitious call for projects in order to develop the commercial wastelands of the city centre of Saint-Etienne.
Eva : “First we brainstormed, and once we had gathered the ideas we decided to allocate one theme per wasteland. The four themes we chose were the environment, work, leisure and culture. We tried to ask ourselves the right questions and to do this we went directly to the users in the city centre to find out their needs, in order to provide an adapted and coherent proposal”.
Eva : “This workshop was a very rewarding experience despite the short time frame. It is pleasant to be put in competition and to have to work with people with whom we are not used to collaborating. It’s also very interesting because it allows us to put ourselves in a situation and discover what the missions of a project manager or any person working in a communication agency are».