25th edition of the Design Workshops

École nationale des ponts et chaussées, Ensa Paris-Est School of Architecture, and Penninghen (School of Art Direction, Communication, and Interior Architecture) are organizing a new edition of the Design Workshops ("Ateliers Design").

For one week, 360 engineering, architecture, and design students will work in multidisciplinary teams to imagine, design, build, and test full-scale objects or structures that are innovative and technically advanced, fulfilling at least one mechanical function.

Fourteen intensive thematic workshops will be held at the SQchool and Ensa Paris-Est. The projects may take a wide variety of forms: a ski bridge, a giant pylon, a soapbox car… The only limit is their feasibility using the resources available at the schools. All objects must also be designed with resource efficiency in mind, which will often lead students to test the limits of the materials.

These design and creation workshops thus aim, on the one hand, to connect mathematical knowledge to its physical manifestation by allowing students to estimate the orders of magnitude of the physical phenomena involved; and, on the other hand, to develop a nuanced understanding of materials, by demonstrating that manufacturing processes vary depending on the scale and materials used.