OuLiPo

When Literature Takes Science by the Hand 

It’s impossible to talk about OuDuPo without mentioning the movement that inspired it: Oulipo.

Founded by Raymond Queneau and François le Lionnais in 1960, the group was originally called Séminaire de Littérature Expérimentale (Experiment Literature Seminar, or Sélitex). At their next meeting they changed the name to Ouvroir Littéraire Potentiel—Potential Literature Worrkshop, or Oulipo.

Made up of writers fascinated by mathematics and mathematicians fascinated by literature, the group took one question as its founding premise: how can the literary process be enriched by constraints unrelated to writing? The aim is simple: to experiment with the possibilities of language through games and constraints. Georges Perec’s La Disparition, Raymond Queneau's Cent mille milliards de poèmes and Exercices de style by the same author are the standard-bearers of the genre.

By linking science and literature, Oulipo demonstrated that constraint can open a fantastic realm of possibilities. It establishes a framework for the creative process and pushes the author in directions they might not otherwise have taken if they had had the freedom to move.

This is the path our studio has taken on numerous occasions when approaching a new project, with one question in mind: how can we enrich the process and methods of designing cities and structures using data from outside the discipline?