Cooperative serving the community
Plateau Urbain is a temporary and transitional urban planning cooperative that offers affordable workspaces in lively and creative locations in the Île-de-France region and several other cities (Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille). It also provides consulting and forecasting services throughout France.
Key dates in the cooperative's history
2012
Simon Laisney, then a real estate analyst, was struck by the colossal amount of empty office space in the Paris region, noting up to 3.5 million square meters of unused space, equivalent to 30 Montparnasse towers.
He brought together urban planning and real estate professionals, who now form the College of Experts, and with whom he created the Plateau Urbain association in 2013. Their ambition: to build bridges between the world of real estate and that of artists, associations, and innovators.
The first project, the Boutique des Frissons, heralded a series of new initiatives, including Les Grands Voisins in 2015, the first large-scale temporary occupation carried out in partnership with Aurore and Yes We Camp in a disused hospital in the capital.
2016
Plateau Urbain is recognized in the Young Urban Planners Awards and is launching its call for applications platform. The transition to a cooperative society of collective interest (SCIC) LLC in 2017 marks a major turning point, conducive to the diversification of professions. The transition to SCIC was driven by a desire to democratize governance and adhere to cooperative principles.
National expansion began in 2018 with locations in Lyon, Marseille, and Bordeaux. Each project is unique, shaped by the community of occupants. In 2021, the Commune Mesure tool was launched: it analyzes the impact of temporary occupations and transitional urban planning on the city and its stakeholders.
2022
The year 2022 marks the opening of cooperative membership to occupants, thanks to the company's evolution into a SCIC SA (cooperative society of industrial and cooperative interest), as well as the completion of a significant fundraising campaign aimed at increasing its financial capacity at the time of the opening of large-scale third places such as Césure (conversion of a university campus in Paris) and Les Arches Citoyennes (former headquarters of the APHP).
2023
As for 2023, it will be marked by celebrations of 10 years of existence, where creativity and commitment are reshaping the contours of a more united, inclusive, and collaborative urbanity.
How the cooperative works
The Plateau Urbain cooperative has a three-tier governance structure:
The general meeting
The supervisory board
The supervisory board is the cooperative's supervisory body. It is composed of 12 members, elected by the general assembly and drawn from different categories of members: occupants, experts, employees, partners, and financial supporters.
The board of directors
The Executive Board is the cooperative's governing body. It is responsible for implementing the decisions of the General Assembly and the recommendations of the Supervisory Board. The Executive Board is composed of three members: Simon Laisney, Élise Weiler, and Mathias Rouet.
There are currently five categories of membership, which come together at General Meetings.
EMPLOYEES
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EXPERTS
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PARTNERS
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FINANCIAL SUPPORT
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OCCUPANTS
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A cooperative dedicated to transitional urban planning
The cooperative is committed to:
Defending the right to the city
by allowing everyone to use and take ownership of vacant urban spaces and by working in harmony with property owners
Giving unused spaces a new purpose
over a given period (12 months to 6 years), offering them primarily to organizations in the cultural and artistic sector, the social and solidarity economy, and the non-profit sector.
Promoting diversity in uses and profiles
by creating places that combine emergency accommodation and professional activities, promoting inclusion and having a lasting impact on society
The teams
Plateau Urbain now has nearly 100 employees who work every day to make the city more accessible and welcoming. They are divided into five departments with varied and complementary missions: research, development, technical, operations, communications, and support.
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Since its creation in 2013, Plateau Urbain has been:
55 temporary location projects
with an average price per square meter between 30% and 70% below market value
more than 1,700 organizations that do not have the financial capacity to access the traditional real estate market, accommodated in more than 130,000 m² of space
More than 2,000 people in precarious situations have benefited from emergency accommodation in a dozen mixed sites co-managed with solidarity organizations.
Online resources for a better understanding
In the interests of transparency, we publish as many documents as possible online to help you understand the cooperative and share knowledge about new ways of designing power lines: activity reports, surveys, explanatory brochures, press releases, etc. Feel free to browse or download them!