I do not know about you at night, the first thing you do when you come home –
it’s not to open a binder or anything –
it’s sofa, beer, discussion.
It never flies, never, very, very high.
Often the purpose of the discussion,
it’s buying a bar to stop paying beer at all.
It’s often that, it makes us spend the days,
365 days over 365 days.
Except that one day a friend has arrived
with something a little more evolved and a sacred societal reflection.
This societal reflection holds in two figures:
the first is five millions.
Today,
in France, there are five million square meters of empty offices.
You see them every day in the traffic jams, especially in Toulouse,
you see them, they are on the ring road,
they have been empty for one, two years, 10 years, 20 years,
nobody knows what to do with it.
And they are losing money to their owners.
In parallel, you have 900,000 people who are at the door of housing,
that is, who do not have decent housing.
900,000 people, it does not speak to many people,
it’s twice Toulouse.
And if it still does not speak to many people,
it’s 10 stages of France.
Putting the two numbers side by side is a big question.
We were 23 years old, we drank beer, we were not real estate cadors,
let alone people in the emergency shelter,
but we said that with dynamism, we could do something.
One way, in fact, of helping people.
When you have a great idea, in the evening, in the morning,
that you think about it again and that you are humble and not too pretentious,
you think, “Well, we had this idea, it’s great,
but there is someone who thought about it before us. “
Suddenly, we left, pilgrim’s staff in hand.
It was rather, computer, Google, we are looking for buildings
which are recovered to make accommodation.
If I’m here, it’s because we have not found many.
There are many operations,
a dozen people
who managed to mount projects in buildings,
old hospital type, or old hotel, to be able to help other people.
Since there are five million square meters of empty offices in France,
we wanted to be able to surf from building to building,
so that we can help people where there is need.
Surfer from building to building on five million square meters,
it is the question of adapting these buildings.
There are new, old, partitioned, open-plan,
we had to find a way to standardize all that,
to make some kind of package to insert inside a building
so that once inside, we find a home.
The person we help should not feel like living in an office.
A kind of box somehow to get into the box.
Quickly, the box turned into these boxes.
We had to find a way to adapt
to the number of people who were going to live.
So, we decided to create sleeping boxes, sanitary boxes,
kitchens,
and in fact, it’s a huge puzzle that’s put together,
to make housing that looks like a normal home.
Several boxes.
The question you ask yourself
how did we do to make these boxes?
Four directives have been set.
The first of these directives,
was that, first of all, these boxes had to protect the privacy of the people
that we welcomed,
people who had known the street, misery, precariousness.
We had to give them a little cocoon, a kind of intimacy.
The second directive, more technical,
it was that these boxes, like the Lego,
they are assemblable.
With a brick of a Lego,
you can do both an airplane and a boat.
We, it was necessary that with the basic unit of our box,
we can do at the same time a bed, a bathroom or a kitchen.
Third directive, technical too, we are in a context of urgency.
We must not spend time assembling our modules.
It had to be fast.
So, that requires very little tooling
and it must be too complicated to do.
And finally, fourth directive,
just as we wanted to protect the people inside our boxes,
we had to reassure the office owner
on the fact that he was going to get his office back at the end.
So, our boxes must also protect the building,
and once you get out of the building, it can become an office building again.
We did not invent hot water,
any 23-year-old today uses pallets.
We are not very good handymen, but we thought that with pallets,
we found something that was transportable,
easily assembled, not too expensive.
And once we have them squared on each other,
it was enough to bard them, afterwards, with wood or plaster,
and redo rooms.
Which allows us to make our partitioning.
Once you have the box,
that you can put a sanitary module, a kitchen or beds,
you have, therefore, the hearth of which I spoke to you.
Here is a video that shows the assembly of a module.
In reality, to mount this box,
we need four hours to four people.
And here you get a sleeping box, which is 13 square meters.
From the outside, it brings together a cabin,
but from the inside, we managed to create the cocoon of intimacy we wanted to do.
Free to people housed to repaint their module as they please
and in fact to get back the house they wanted.
The question you ask yourself is:
“Well, you have the box, you have the great idea,
why are not you helping the whole earth? “
The idea, the utopian vision of 23-year-olds, is:
“Well, there are office owners, who are losing money,
we will offer them a great idea, they will necessarily adhere. “
But we did not think about the fact that in 2008,
these people had already lost a lot of money
and the less they lose, the better.
So the first operation will probably be done
in public buildings,
and that poses a second problem,
it is that which says public says administration,
and who says administration says deadlines,
so, it’s been a year since we started the first operation.
We say that there will be a click, one day,
which will allow us to move forward, to go further.
The trigger was to blow up his classes to develop an idea.
It was not very difficult to convince us.
The second point,
it was to participate in an international competition on the city of tomorrow.
We had an afternoon to kill, we made a video and won the contest.
So, we went to participate in all international competitions
on the city of tomorrow,
we lost them all.
We lost time, but we created contacts.
Exactly, we are at the corner of an exhibition,
and there you see a minister.
Normally you will talk to him about ideas.
It turns out that we are working with this minister now
to mount the first operation.
Last opportunity:
you are talking about your idea and there is someone who tells you:
“Perhaps we should help you from a trade point of view.
Enter the incubator. “
We went back to a business school incubator
without ever having heard of a business plan.
I like the idea you make that I managed to do this alone,
but in fact, we are six on the project, from the beginning.
And most of the people around us tell me:
“It’s going to be a problem, you’re never going to get there.
Six people, you do the same studies,
you come from the same specialties,
you all live together, you are all roommates,
you are going to get drunk. “
The only thing that was problematic,
it was to know who was going to get on this stage.
I won.
(Laughter)
The thing is, actually, to say all that –
we come up with something spontaneously.
So there are people who say that we are careless, or unconscious,
but I think it takes
to put the fruit of capitalism at the service of the most precarious.
Thank you.
(Applause)
”
Be First to Comment