Charrette

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For other uses of charrette or charette, see Charrette (disambiguation).

A charrette (pronounced [shuh-ret], often misspelled charette and sometimes called a design charrette) consists of an intense period of design activity.

1 Charrettes in general
2 Specific cases of charrette
3 Origins of the term "charrette"
4 External links

[edit] Charrettes in general

The word charrette can refer to any collaborative session in which a group of designers drafts a solution to a design problem. While the structure of a charrette varies depending on the design problem and the individuals in the group, charrettes often take place in multiple sessions in which the group divides into sub-groups. Each sub-group then presents its work to the full group as material for future dialogue. Such charrettes serve as a way of quickly generating a design solution while integrating the aptitudes and interests of a diverse group of people. Compare workshop.

[edit] Specific cases of charrette

Charrettes take place in many disciplines, including urban planning. In urban planning, the charrette has become a technique for consulting with all stakeholders. Such charrettes typically involve intense, possibly multi-day meetings, involving municipal officials, developers and local residents. A charrette promotes joint ownership of solutions and attempts to defuse traditional confrontational attitudes between residents and developers. However, charrettes tend to involve small groups, and the resident representatives may not represent all the residents nor have the moral authority to represent them. Residents do get early input into the planning process. For developers and municipal officials charrettes achieve community involvement, may satisfy consultation criteria, and hopefully avoid costly legal battles. Other uses of the term "charrette" occur within an academic or professional setting, whereas urban planners invite the general public to their planning charrettes. Thus most people (unless they happen to be architecture students) encounter the term "charrette" in an urban-planning context.

In fields of design such as architecture, landscape architecture, industrial design, interior design, or graphic design, the term charrette can refer to an intense period of work by one person or a group of people prior to a deadline. The period of a charrette typically involves not only a focused and sustained effort, but also "all-nighters" or sleepless nights of toil. The word "charrette" can also be used as a verb, as in, for example, "I am charretting" or "I am on charrette [or: en charrette]," simply meaning I am working long nights, intensively toward a deadline.

An example of the charrette: the University of Virginia's School of Architecture unofficially calls the last week before the end of classes Charrette. At the final deadline time (assigned by the School), all students must put their "pencils down" and stop working. Students then present to fellow-students and faculty in a critiqued presentation.

[edit] Origins of the term "charrette"

Thought to originate from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 19th Century, the word charrette is from the French for "cart" or "chariot". Student architects still working furiously on the grand illustrations that were their design presentations, literally in the cart, (en charrette) as they were wheeled through the streets of Paris on their way at the very last minute to turn in their work to their professors^{[citation needed]}

The term charrette also, historically, applied to the cart or tumbril used to carry the condemned to the guillotine. See: Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé. For example: Une charrette (...) traînait lentement à la guillotine un homme dont personne ne savait le nom (Anatole France, Les Dieux ont soif, 1912, p. 44) [trans: "a charrette slowly brought to the guillotine a man whose name nobody knew".]

Hence the current meaning of work leading up to a deadline, subsequently morphed into the urban-planning usage of the term.