Charrette

The word charrette may refer to any collaborative session in which a group of designers draft 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. The word charrette is French for "Cart" or "Chariot." Its use in the sense of design and planning arose in the 19th century at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where it was not unusual at the end of a term for teams of student architects to work right up until a deadline, when a charrette would be wheeled among them to collect up their scale models and other work for review. The furious continuation of their work to apply the finishing touches came to be referred to as working en charrette, "In the cart." Émile Zola depicted such a scene of feverish activity, a nuit de charrette or "Charrette night," in L'Œuvre, his fictionalized account of his friendship with Paul Cézanne. In fields of design such as architecture, landscape architecture, industrial design, interior design, interaction design, or graphic design, the term charrette may refer to an intense period of work by one person or a group of people prior to a deadline. The word "Charrette" may also be used as a verb, as in, for example, "I am charretting" or "I am on charrette ," simply meaning I am working long nights, intensively toward a deadline. In some cases, a charrette may be held on a recurring basis, such as the annual charrette held by the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning department at Utah State University.