Disciplines

Design, cognitive sciences, psychology-ergonomics, sociology.

Research aims

The research focuses on the dynamics of co-ideation and the ways in which users and stakeholders are integrated into participatory design processes. It analyses the socio-technical mediation mechanisms, i.e. representation systems and human support strategies and tactics. The questions are confronted or directly derived from practitioners in order to propose grounded research that meets real needs. The methodology combines the design and experimentation of original representation tools, systematic analysis of the design activity and ethnographic data collection.

The thesis was in the field of architectural design and focused on the support provided by a mock-up kit for the generativity of the co-ideation process, the structuring of user contributions across the epistemic levels of the project and the conceptual fidelity of the final project to the proposals arising from participation.

The post-doctoral work takes part in the BeCreative project, initiated by INRAE and deployed in a dozen territories in hexagonal France. It proposes to consider the agro-ecological transition (AET) as a field of design so that it can benefit from its tools and perspectives of analysis. The aim is to mobilize systemic, prospective and game design to study the issues of representation that are specific to it: the possibility of analogy between singular territories; transcalar representation of a complex system; scenarios and the peasant imaginary of subsistence. 

Biography

Aliénor Morvan is a designer who graduated from Ensad in Nancy. She then developed her end-of-study project on shared composting in an urban environment on an entrepreneurial basis within the Stand Up Artem incubator, right through to industrialisation. At the same time, she continues to work as a freelance designer, collaborating with art centres (CREDAC, Parc Philosophique Jean-Jacques Rousseau) and teaching (Ensad Nancy, Mines Nancy and the Maison pour la Science en Lorraine). In 2020, she began a doctoral thesis in design at Télécom Paris under the supervision of Françoise Détienne, Stéphane Safin (SES department, Télécom Paris) and Tomas Dorta (School of Design, University of Montreal), based on the design project for the hall of the institution's new building on the Plateau de Saclay. She will defend it in November 2024 before joining the CRD.

Prizes

Vitra France 2012, as part of the Jean Prouvé year in Nancy.

Master thesis supervision

Lilyana Yancova, Composting in the city, a child’s play. Specialised Master in Sustainable Innovation by Design 2023-2025. ENSCI-Les Ateliers.

Works

• Entrepreneurial development of the MOTE project. 2015-2020.
• Participation in the research mission on the typologies of artistic incubators in Detroit (Michigan, USA) to prefigure the architectural programming of the Villa Artem in Nancy.
• Co-organisation with Carole-Anne Tisserand (CSI) of the study day on ‘the citizen-user in urban co-design’ at Mines ParisTech, March 2022. .

Exhibitions

• Stand Up! Creative and cultural incubateur ARTEM, Galery S001 15.09-15.10.21, Ensad Nancy, France.
• Anthroposol, Shadok, 2017, Strasbourg, France.
• FuturOklasch, TCRM-Blida, 2017, Metz, France.
• Brèches, as part of the conference «Design and care thinking», 2017, Ensad Nancy, France.
• Ephemeral gardens, place Stanislas, October 2016, Nancy, France.
• Milk Factory, designer days, 2015, Paris, France.
• The Design companions, Emmaüs-Gallery Castel Coucou, 2013, Forbach, France.
• Design emotion, Alexander von Vegesack’s collection, Galerie Poirel, Nancy, France.
• Modern conversations, La galerie blanche, Radiant city, 2012, Briey-en-Forêt, France.

Publications

• MORVAN, Aliénor, SAFIN, Stéphane, & DÉTIENNE, Françoise, Values. Uses. Materials: the expression of users in the co-creation through virtual and tangible representation systems. In Proceedings of the 33rd European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics, Keiserslautern, 2022 (pp. 1-5).
   
• MORVAN, Aliénor, SAFIN, Stéphane, DORTA, Tomas & DÉTIENNE, Françoise, Users’ contribution in a co-ideation workshop: a sociotechnical mediation for exploring the epistemic levels of a project. Activities, Paris, 2024, (21-1).

Conferences

• Values. Uses. Materials: the expression of users in the co-creation through virtual and tangible representation systems. European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics (ECCE), Kaiserslautern (Germany), 4-7/10/2022.
   
• Users’ contribution in a co-ideation workshop: a sociotechnical mediation for exploring the epistemic levels of a project, Activités journal’s study day “Representing activity in design” Paris, 30/09/2022.