Fanny Chavanne
About
Fanny Chavanne is a designer whose work lies at the crossroads between objects, interaction and urban design. She uses collaborative design processes to develop solutions that are innovative, scalable, and highly impact driven.
Her creations strive to offer a more reasoned design to question our relationship with materials and the more-than-human world. Currently, her research focuses on new ways people and communities can engage with their environments especially in the context of climate change and the urge to build more resilient societies.
Originally from France, she has lived most of her life abroad, particularly in west Africa.
Education :
MA/MSc Global Innovation Design - Royal College of Art and Imperial College London (2020-2022)
BA Object and spatial design - Esad de Reims
MANAA - ENSAAMA Olivier de Serres, Paris.
Relevant Experiences :
2022 - Research designer at DLX LAB U Tokyo (internship)
2021 - Service designer at LA RESERVE DES ARTS - working in the circular economy sector.
2019 - Colour designer at Jeanne Goutelle Atelier (internship)
Exhibition
2022 - Inspire talk at Shibuya QWS
Statement
As a programme, cohort and experience, GID has helped me to grow and define myself as a designer. I was pushed to develop awareness in my own design processes and challenge the validity of my ideas. Centered around innovation and impact, GID gave me the confidence and ability to look at global and system level problems.
As a designer, I work collaboratively and within communities to ensure that my work is grounded in locally informed realities. I believe design can help to position ourselves in interconnected and interdependent ecosystems by questioning our relationship with others and with the more-than-human world.
RCA showcase:
WeDepave - A piece of strategic design on depaving adoption and acceptance in London.
Urban cold island - Half urban furniture, half architecture, this work produced during my internship at DLX LAD at Tokyo U proposes a solution with very low energy consumption to cool down during heatwaves.
WeDepave
Depaving is the act of removing impermeable materials like concrete or asphalt off the ground. Although it's still very uncommon, it's nevertheless a powerful nature-based solution to increase cities’ resiliency to climate change. Once the soil is free, allowing plants like weeds to grow spontaneously will turn depaved areas into green spaces. These spaces can then cool down the air, reduce flood risks, foster biodiversity, and contribute to social well-being.
WeDepave is a piece of strategic design to help London councils set up impactful and long-term depaving schemes. To achieve an urban mosaics of small–depaved and re-greened spaces, kerbsides (roads' sides where cars can park) were identified as a type of space with a high potential for depaving.
WeDepave offers a knowledge building and sharing platform that involves children, parents, passer-by, and local councils during pilot projects.
Depaved areas will be turned into exploratory fields for pupils aged 7 to 9 to conduct citizen science projects in partnership with scientists to help document on-going urban rewilding. This will include taking pictures regularly to input data onto the platform. An educational app was designed to encourage pupils to take part through gamification and to support these 2-year programmes in selected primary schools.
Overall this project proposes to reflect collectively on how we define and care for nature in urban environments.
Are we ready to accept plants that are more resistant to climate change, such as weeds, instead of traditional and colourful flowerbeds? Down the line, the challenge is to generate the knowledge needed to make councils feel confident about depaving on a larger scale.
Urban cold islands - アーバン涼島
The Urban Heat Island effect is the phenomena in which urban areas experience higher temperatures than rural areas.This leads to more cases of heat-related illnesses like heat stroke and more energy consumption to cool down buildings.
This project developed with Kikumoto LAB inside Tokyo University aims to create sustainable refreshing public space for inhabitants of urban areas. The idea is to offer community spaces where people can come to rest, wait for a bus, or exchange books for free.
Using natural resources like rain water and wind, the inside temperature of these spaces is cooled thanks to evapotranspiration. Here are two models of two different design proposals, a tower and a shape inspired by wind flow.