Faubourg 132 and La Fraise finalists for the New European Bauhaus Prizes 2022

Faubourg 132 is an artists and designers association based in Armentières, one of the 95 communes of Lille Metropole. Faubourg 132 develops new ways of making, revalorizing and producing. The association also initiates collective actions and invites the public to get involved through practice.

In 2016, the collective of artists and designers created "la Fraise" (this means "woodmilling machine" and als "strawberry" in french), a mobile digital fabrication tool achieving two main goals:

To create, develop and experiment with new solutions in the fields of manufacturing, reuse and repair, through the realization of the Gamme Zéro chute or the Recyclab project.

To accompany the public in the manufacture of objects, fittings, spaces, in particular within the framework of the Workshops "La Fraise".

Faubourg 132 proposed this project in the framework of the New European Bauhaus (NEB) Prizes 2022, convinced of the ecological, pedagogical, sustainable and convivial scope of La Fraise. The NEB Prize is a European Commission initiative. It aims to identify, disseminate and promote European projects that meet the values of inclusiveness, sustainability and aesthetics. La Fraise has been selected among 1100 European projects. La Fraise is one of the 52 finalist projects of the New European Bauhaus Prizes 2022, in the category 4 "Shaping a circular industrial ecosystem and supporting life-cycle thinking". This nomination offered the collective of artists the opportunity to spread the values of inclusiveness, conviviality and sustainability that the project conveys on a European scale.

The project of "La Fraise" concretizes the commitment of artists-designers for the reappropriation of objects and repair. It is also a collective project: people are actors, from the conception to the fabrication of an object, a space or an installation. Finally, the Strawberry is an educational tool to raise awareness of sustainable development, local production and digital tools. The fabrications and demonstrations on site initiate concrete exchanges around these issues with the public.

"La Fraise" has received support from:

• - DRAC Hauts-de-France as part of the Individual Aid for Creation and the Call for Cultural Action Projects;
• - Hauts-de-France Region within the framework of the Help to the investment of the cultural projects;
• - Department du Nord.
• - Lille Metropole in the framework of the project ‘Mets la transition dans ton quartier’ (transform your neighborhood)