Research
Abbaye Saint-Pierre is an independent research and innovation institution anchored in a working historic estate. Its agenda asks how living heritage can contribute to contemporary ways of creating, living together, caring for people, developing places, using buildings and managing land.
The institution is focused on exploring and researching ideas for the common good. Four research centres express its agenda; the estate provides shared infrastructure; projects are time-bounded contributions to that agenda. A funding decision can change a project’s scale or timetable without determining whether its underlying research question remains relevant.
Each centre is focused on a field of enquiry. They are connected by design.
Three shared capabilities run through all four: human-controlled digital and artificial intelligence methods, participatory research and evaluation, and skills, enterprise development and knowledge transfer.
Each study is intended to produce a dated, citable record: a report, source edition, dataset, film or documented method, as appropriate. It should identify sources, permissions, methods and limitations. Public sharing is agreed with partners and respects privacy, rights and any justified restrictions.
How can living cultural knowledge generate contemporary creative work, useful innovation, and viable livelihoods?
Strands. Living heritage and transmission · circular craft and material intelligence · responsible digital practice · creative enterprise and fair cooperation.
How do cultural participation, everyday rhythms, nature, and shared activity influence wellbeing and belonging?
Strands. Culture and participation · nature and meaningful activity · daily rhythms and shared meals · inclusive and intergenerational living.
How can historic places become beautiful, sustainable, inclusive settings for contemporary life?
Strands. Repair and adaptive reuse · comfort and environmental performance · beauty and quality of experience · inclusion and sustainable stewardship.
How can land management reconnect soil health, biodiversity, water resilience, food production, and rural livelihoods?
Strands. Soil and land management · biodiversity and cultivated diversity · water resilience · food systems and rural value.
Programmes
Eight programmes and projects carry the agenda forward, at stages from early concept to completed design. Two centres are designing their first studies and are looking for the partner who will lead them.
DELTA · RETHREAD STUDIO · ORDIT · CANTUS VIVUS · SIGNAVOX · ATELIER
Living craft traditions and fair cooperation, circular fashion through garment knowledge, textile heritage in contemporary design, chant transmission, and responsible AI in cultural workflows.
AQUI-RETAIN · ATLANTIS
Water retention and aquifer recharge on a working farm, and community participation in water stewardship. Both run through SCEA Abbaye Saint Pierre de Lacour, which holds the land.
Wellbeing Innovation Centre · Bauhaus Vision Implementation Centre
A feasibility study of a residential programme format, an access and participation review, and a phased building demonstrator taking one space through condition, question, a year of monitoring and a documented intervention.
The connections are the reason for working in one place. Three examples of questions that belong to more than one centre at once.
A repair is a cultural act and a building decision. The skill required, the durability achieved, the resources consumed, and the appearance of the result are one question, not four. The Cultural and Creative Sectors and Industries Innovation Centre works with the Bauhaus Vision Implementation Centre.
Food heritage is cultural knowledge; food production is land management; a shared table is a form of participation. Each aspect belongs to a different centre, and a study of any one of them is improved by the others.
How water moves through a landscape affects soil, habitat, crops, and the buildings at the bottom of the slope. The Regenerative Land and Food Systems Innovation Centre works with the Bauhaus Vision Implementation Centre on adaptation.
Each study is assigned one primary centre and cross-referenced to the others, so that responsibility for it is always clear.
One working model runs across the four centres: define the question together, establish the starting point, design a proportionate study, test in use, evaluate and share, and determine what continues.
Different disciplines need different standards of evidence. A source edition, a garment trial, a wellbeing feasibility study, and a water-retention experiment cannot be judged by the same indicators.
If a question in any of these fields would benefit from a working estate, residential proximity, and practitioners who are part of the research rather than its subject, we would like to hear from you.