Azimuts 54 reports on a selection of design research surveys that were carried out in Saint-Etienne between 2015 and 2022 by different researchers and collectives in collaboration between designer artists and academics linked to this territory, their field. Far from reflecting the exhaustiveness of the research approaches in design…

Azimuts 54 reports on a selection of design research surveys that were carried out in Saint-Etienne between 2015 and 2022 by different researchers and collectives in collaboration between designer artists and academics linked to this territory, their field. Far from reflecting the exhaustiveness of the research approaches in design undertaken here and elsewhere, this issue attempts to present the diversity of approaches, methodologies and study objects that can be found in a geographical area even if restricted.
Some of the work addresses local and regional issues that concern the territory and identity of Saint-Etienne. These restitutions of completed or ongoing surveys are part of the Saint-Etienne territory and gravitate, intellectually and statutorily, around the ecosystem of the Esadse Cité du design. This set of surveys is, in this issue, compiled by institutions (pink paper: Esadse, white paper: Saint-Etienne collectives, green paper: Cité du design (research center).
This Azimuts was thought and shaped by the team as a methodological toolbox. Thus, in an approach of dissecting each contribution we decided to integrate metadata extracted from each survey, in order to show the plurality of ways of doing research, indicating: GPS coordinates and the date of the research subject, the number of words of the contribution, surface area of ​​the published article once put on the wall, etc.
Its form adapting to its content, Azimuts 54 "Learning from Saint-Etienne" can therefore be dismantled, page by page, laid flat so that new uses can once again be proposed and new spatial configurations, inducing new forms of reading and displaying research content, can be found. Printing and format: In previous issues, the Azimuts team decided to implement a new printed format to limit paper losses during offset printing as much as possible.
We took up this desire for an "economical" format but adapted for digital presses which met our budget and our needs more. Shaping: In order to reflect the diversity and history of the Saint-Etienne territory, the team decided to take up graphic codes used in one of the emblematic graphic references of the place: the catalog of the Manufacture française d'armes et de cycles.
So we chose to resume the implementation of "category" by the color of paper, but also through a pagination that starts again with each new part (here each contribution). It is in a desire for a cycle that we opted for a spiral binding and a cover that can fold back on itself. Thus the reader is invited to play with the chronology of the contributions, with a first page that can be continually changed.
In this same inspiration of the Manufrance catalog we have opted for a format, a binding, its papers and a holding of the editorial object (flexible): which makes it modest in its materiality.

Editor: Cité du design, 2022
Weight: 0.65 kg

Dimensions: 21.0 cm × 28.0 cm × 2.2 cm
Language: French