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The newly-developed method of graphic stability is applied to Robert Maillart’s iconic roof design at Chiasso. The truss has an unusual form which emerged from Maillart’s graphic statics as the shape dual to the symmetrical equilibrium forces. Although graphic statics can lead to highly efficient structural forms, there can be a tendency for diagonal bracing to be minimised or even eliminated, as at Chiasso. Whilst equilibrium is satisfied, there may be a decrease in stability, and it has previously not been possible to quantify this within the traditional graphical approach. Using Chiasso as an example, this paper demonstrates how the prestress stability of this and similar truss structures may now be assessed within the same graphical setting.

Diagrams are always abstractions of reality. A diagrammatic practice is always based on the belief that abstracting reality is an effective tool for understanding and transforming it. In the light of the recent wave of architectural practices based on a return to representation, identity, and language, we want to advocate for abstraction and estrangement as tools to engage with the planetary scale of the problems we face, such as climate change, pandemics, and environmental degradation.

At least 40% of total greenhouse gas emissions are related to the built environment, mostly because of energy coming from fossil fuels. In response, developments with an improved energy efficiency (e.g. so-called ‘green’ or ‘net-zero energy’ developments) have been built. Despite reductions in operational energy use in ‘green’ developments, previous studies have identified trade-offs in terms of embodied energy in construction materials and sometimes transport energy associated with the mobility of building users. This research reconsiders the evaluation of green environmental claims through a life cycle approach. A multi-scale life cycle energy assessment software tool is employed to quantify the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of a case study medium-scale green development in Melbourne, Australia over 50 years. Results show that the total life cycle energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of the development are 1,492 TJ (2,688 GJ per capita and 107 GJ/m2 of GFA) and 81 ktCO2-e (146 tCO2-e per capita and 6 tCO2-e/m2 of GFA), respectively, compared to 2,220 TJ (4,001 GJ per capita and 159 GJ/m2 of GFA) and 177 ktCO2-e (318 tCO2-e per capita and 13 tCO2-e/m2 of GFA) for a business-as-usual development with the same geometry. In fact, each of the embodied, operational and transport energy requirements represents an important contribution to the life cycle energy: 31%, 35% and 34%, respectively. Therefore, all life cycle stages and scales of the built environment are relevant to the overall energy and greenhouse gas emissions performance of green developments.

On the long term, buildings could initiate less material flows and have improved environmental performance if they are designed for future disassembly and reuse. However, material flows in the building life cycle are difficult to map, especially those initiated by material replacements and at end-of-life. The calculation formula for the number of replacements in buildings in the Life Cycle Assessment standard EN 15978 neglects the effect such replacements may have on the surrounding interdependent building parts, and hence fails to capture the potential benefits of Design for Disassembly. In light of this shortcoming, we propose a method to model the flows of building parts initiated by the disassembly of a building, both during operational and end-of-life stages. This modeling method considers aspects of structural stability, accessibility, and the use of detachable connections. It offers a bottom-up time-based Material Flow Analysis of an entire building which can be integrated in a Life Cycle Assessment. We apply our method on a pavilion and compare the method results to the those obtained with EN 15978, considering nine design options. The life cycle environmental impact estimated with our method is up to 162% larger than the impacts calculated with EN 15978 for a pavilion with non-detachable connections, which demonstrates the importance of this design parameter. Our method can be of interest to researchers, Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing auditors, architecture, engineering and construction professionals, urban miners and any other actors interested in the design of demountable buildings.

This contribution to the volume explores a number of mirrors of princes, written during the second half of the fifteenth century in Italy, and the prescriptions their authors provided for the adornment of the prince’s body in relation to contemporary models on human understanding, emotions and their effect. My text argues that admiration in specific was understood to create powerful emotional effects as it related to both positive feelings of praise and reverence, and negative feelings of estrangement and fear. This double effect of admiration as something that simultaneously attracts and creates distance is especially discernible in contemporary discussions on the exterior ornamentation to be provided for the ruler’s palace. This ornamentation needed to evoke admiration in the beholder, as well as associations with wealth, power, virility and strength in order to create praise and reverence towards the prince, while also keeping his subjects at a distance from the ruler’s physical body. Because of its ornamentation, the palace could also function as a portrait of the prince and create a stable and continuous visual presence of the ruler, even in his absence. Architectural ornamentation could perpetuate the emotional effect of seeing the prince through time and space.

Urban metabolism studies provide valuable insights that can improve resource efficiency at the city scale. However, only a limited number of such studies include spatially explicit data to inform planning practitioners. In this article, we argue that integrating spatially explicit urban metabolism data in urban planning can leverage resource-efficient development and management of open space networks. Based on this premise, our research investigates to what extent GIS data can improve the applicability of metabolic studies in urban planning and the management of open space networks in particular. A GIS-based urban metabolism assessment of Mexico City was performed at the city scale, including data on vulnerable communities and alternative governance systems. After mapping selected GIS layers, a detailed resource efficiency analysis was performed through the compilation of a Borough Pattern Scan, based on quantification of resource use, total areas of resource infrastructure and public open spaces. The results of our multi-scale spatially explicit analysis provide an improved understanding of borough metabolic profiles which can leverage a more resource-efficient development of open space networks in Mexico City.

La plupart de études sur la « question rom » se focalisent sur les effets de politiques publiques discriminatoires, sur les processus de marginalisation et la vulnérabilité qui caractérisent la vie de ces migrants dans les villes françaises. Les décisions publiques qui les visent et les actions qui en découlent – notamment l’expulsion des squats et des bidonvilles – sont guidées par l’urgence et légitimées par des discours qui mettent l’accent sur l’insécurité des personnes due aux conditions malsaines de ces établissements. Aux yeux des autorités, le manque d’eau courante et d’installations sanitaires est une des causes principales qui rendent ces espaces invivables. Les expulsions répétées ont un impact assez violent sur la vie de ces personnes, les obligeant à se déplacer d’un squat à l’autre, d’un terrain à l’autre, ce qui ne fait qu’exacerber leur vulnérabilité. Et pourtant, malgré cette condition de nomadisme forcé, leur permanence dans la ville et la re-création constante d’espaces vivables méritent d’être prises en compte différemment. Cela implique d’assumer une perspective qui se focalise sur la manière dont les Roms agencent leur accès et leur ancrage dans la ville, et qui amène à reconsidérer ces personnes comme des sujets impliqués dans la transformation de l’espace urbain, plutôt que comme des objets passifs de l’action publique.

L’héritage de Francfort s’est traduit par des « ratios » (E. May) qui ont permis de garantir de bonnes conditions d’habitabilité dans un nombre massif de logements urbains. Cependant, les normes qui en ont résulté sont plus tard devenues un possible carcan, dans un monde gagné par les promesses de la société de consommation et l’émergence de l’individu. Partant de nos travaux sur le logement social et la maison individuelle, conduits dans différentes métropoles françaises, portugaises, et marocaines, nous présenterons les dépassements de la norme, dans l’appropriation du logement standard, soit par des modifications, mineures ou majeures, « hors normes », voire illégales en regard des normes autorisées, soit par l’introduction, souvent subtile, « outre normes », d’équipements ou de mobiliers, ajoutant des qualités complémentaires à l’espace initial. À partir du croisement de ces contextes, nous tenterons de repérer les différentes formes et modalités du dépassement de la norme et montrerons en quoi beaucoup permettent, dans l’architecture du logement du XXe siècle - et mieux que la réhabilitation lourde - d’améliorer le confort et de conduire vers des modes d’habiter plus économes.

Les matériaux de terre cuite ont fait l’objet d’innovations dans la période d’après-guerre. L’une d’elle est la réalisation de panneaux de façade préfabriqués en brique et béton selon le procédé Costamagna, utilisé à la cité Ancely (1963-73) à Toulouse. Il y est décliné en une dizaine de panneaux avec un revêtement auto-laveur qui donne son identité à la cité Ancely. Les deux campagnes de rénovation des façades dont la dernière est en cours, rendent compte des enjeux qui pèsent sur ces panneaux parfois très abîmés, dont la fabrication n’a plus cours, dans un contexte d’injonction à la rénovation énergétique. L’unité esthétique du grand ensemble est aujourd’hui menacée tout comme l’histoire d’un procédé de préfabrication jusqu’à aujourd’hui peu renseigné. La première partie sera consacrée au procédé Costamagna, son adaptation au projet d’Ancely et aux rôles des acteurs mobilisés. Nous interrogerons ensuite la pérennité du système constructif, à travers la restauration des façades.

Tower blocks within large housing estates, with their unusual volume and strategic location, function both as striking and unifying objects. Their particular shape gives them a typological and sociological make-up that is different from the other buildings in the estate and generates increasing attention to environmental, safety and regulatory issues. To what extent is the tower block an exception within the estate and how does its particular status as a tower affect the renovation programme? We will attempt to answer these questions using the case study of the Mazades Tower, located in the complex of the same name in Toulouse and built between 1958 and 1962 by Jean Montier. The tower block is currently undergoing thermal renovation and a safety upgrade conducted by the Letellier architectural firm. The architects' aesthetic choices, linked to energy and technical issues, question the status of the tower as a singular object in the overall complex and in the city. The height and the position of the tower block at the heart of the estate seems to legitimize an architectural style that is at odds with the rest of the Mazades buildings. The first part of this article will attempt to clarify the tower's status as both a singular and complementary object in the ensemble, from a compositional, urban and sociological point of view. This will be done in general terms based on the Mazades tower block, but also on international case studies. We will then look at the case of the Mazades tower block to see how this singularity has merged into the renovation project and the consequences for the architectural unity of the overall estate.

Le photographe Laurent Kronental s’intéresse aux lieux sans avenir. Les immeubles qu’il affectionne, autour de Paris, sont figés dans le temps. « Souvenirs d’un futur » raconte une folie des grandeurs révolue, et la solitude d’habitants devenus âgés, seuls à bords d’un Titanic – et d’un modèle d’habitat – qui échoue. Magnifiés par la chambre photographique, ces décors spectaculaires oscillent entre réalité et fiction. Le texte expérimente une forme d'écriture qui s'apparente au montage. Y sont conviés l’histoire du post-modernisme, les villes nouvelles, Hollywood, une canne et des quidams.

Green buildings (GBs) are gaining popularity the world over. This study investigates the criteria that determine the success of GB projects. This study employs the interpretive qualitative approach. Semistructured interviews (n = 40) across five countries were conducted with experts active in different roles in GBs. Overall, 17 success criteria and 39 subcriteria are identified. Some key success criteria are about meeting the needs of building occupants (n = 25), meeting project aspirations (n = 16), realizing sustainable building operations (n = 15), and achieving GB certifications (n = 14). The identified criteria are inquired to determine whether they are about doing the “right things,” about doing “things right,” or about generating value. The interrelationships among success criteria and the priorities placed on some success criteria in GB projects according to the respondents are also discussed. Theoretically, the inquiry of criteria adds depth to the understanding of building project success in general, and GB success in particular. Practically, the comprehensive list of success criteria can be used as a guide on GB projects for performance evaluation and for controlling project performance.

Deze atlas is een niet exhaustieve collectie van thematische informatie ter beschrijving van het ruimtelijke functioneren van het 20ste eeuwse randgebied van en rond Brussel. Dit document richt zich in het bijzonder op de gebouwde ruimte en haar transformatiepotentieel en is opgemaakt in functie van de randvoorwaarden voor stedelijke vernieuwing.

Cet atlas est une collection non exhaustive d’informations thématiques qui vise à décrire l’urbanisation du XXe siècle dans et autour de Bruxelles et les dynamiques de son fonctionnement. Il se focalise en particulier sur le cadre bâti, en vue d’envisager les conditions de sa rénovation.

Urban surface complexity is known to exacerbate the spatio-temporal variability of flow and transport in cities, resulting in highly heterogeneous wind fields. As a result, the probability density function of wind speed and direction is broader compared to that over homogeneous terrain, and the likelihood of extreme high or low winds, which is related to resident comfort and safety, increases accordingly. This study investigates these urban wind extrema by conducting large-eddy simulations (LESs),where the buildings are resolved explicitly using the immersed boundary method. The building geometries were obtained from the high-resolution digital surface maps (DSMs). An analysis of a few selected cities indicates that gusts tend to occur along wind-oriented streets and on both sides of high-rise buildings, while low wind regions tend to be mostly located in the lee of tall and/or wide buildings. Possible geometric parameters explaining these winds extrema are investigated, such as the street orientation and the building densities. These findings provide insight for improving both urban planning and sensing.

Diagrams are always abstractions of reality. A diagrammatic practice is always based on the belief that abstracting reality is an effective tool for understanding and transforming it. In the light of the recent wave of architectural practices based on a return to representation, identity, and language, we want to advocate for abstraction and estrangement as tools to engage with the planetary scale of the problems we face, such as climate change, pandemics, and environmental degradation.

The decrease in air pollutants concentration during the COVID-19 lockdown has been well documented; however, there has been no systematic analysis to derive a generalizable quantitative link to the drop in vehicular traffic. To bridge this gap, high spatial resolution air quality and geo-referenced vehicular traffic datasets were compiled for the city of London during three weeks with significant variation in traffic. A drop of ~30% in the contaminant concentration was documented, with similar trends for NO2 and PM2.5, between the weeks prior to the COVID-19 lockdown and after it in the city of London. For the same period, the drop in total vehicle count was about ~70%. The London analysis was then augmented with a meta-analysis of lower-resolution studies from 12 other cities. The results confirm that the improvement in air quality can be directly linked to the traffic reduction, and more importantly quantifies the elasticity (0.71 for NO2 and 0.56 for PM2.5) of their linkages to elucidate the contribution of vehicular emissions to adverse urban air quality. The findings can be used to project the positive impacts on urban air quality of the emerging shift to electric vehicles and micro-mobility in cities.

Through advancements of direct and remote sensing technologies, we have recently learned that urban microclimate and air quality gradients can often be more significant than city to rural differences. However, the urban design parameters that are most critical to improve environmental health and reduce building energy consumption, are yet to be identified. This research makes use of air quality datasets collected through a dense stationary sensing network in New York City, remote sensing datasets for land surface temperature and normalized difference vegetation index, building usage metrics, building and urban design metrics, and socio-demographic datasets including population and health metrics. Through a neighbourhood-scale footprint-based regression analysis, the correlation between the air quality, land surface temperature, building usage and urban metrics has been studied. Highest correlations have been observed between air quality and land surface temperature and urban design and socio-economic metrics. The results show that building usage metrics such as the energy use intensity or electricity purchase, are mainly affected by building design characteristics. On the other hand, significant correlations have been observed between the urban design, socio-demographic and contaminant concentration gradients, addressing the critical role the planning and design of our cities plays in the environmental well-being of citizens.

Recent advancements in direct sensing technologies have revealed the heterogenous spatial environmental gradients that characterize our cities. Through the study of these datasets, significant correlations between urban microclimate and air quality, and socio-economic, urban greenery, and urban fabric design parameters have also been reported. However, physics-based urban microclimate and air quality modeling approaches generally fail to include detailed urban spatial datasets and thus tend to oversimplify spatial urban environmental gradients. This research proposes a machine learning approach utilizing Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Bayesian methods for spatial prediction of PM2.5 concentration and air temperature. High spatiotemporal urban environmental datasets collected from dense municipal and citizen science urban air quality sensing networks, in combination with remote sensing datasets on land surface temperature and normalized difference vegetation index, and geospatial datasets on socio-demographic and urban fabric parameters, have been collected for Los Angeles and New York City. Through a footprint-based study, and for all direct sensing station locations, the featured variables and the buffer sizes with higher correlations have been identified to train the machine learning models. The results show that supervised machine learning approaches trained utilizing dense urban environmental sensing datasets can provide a reliable approach for urban spatial environmental predictions. The research also contributes to the understanding of the required density of urban air quality sensing networks to capture urban air pollution gradients, as well as the possibilities to utilize citizen science air quality data.

Travailler sur Alger et observer le développement spatial et son cadre bâti et non-bâti entraine la mise en exergue de différents constats et phénomènes urbains. Certains sont objectifs, d’autres sont liées aux personnes qui les émettent (citoyens, professionnels, administrations, politiques), aux disciplines (architecture, urbanisme, politique, droit…), à la culture et à l’imaginaire (propreté, ordre – désordre, civisme…), etc. Toutefois, le contexte urbain et urbanistique d’Alger peut être résumé en deux constats principaux qui sont partagés, de manière objective et consensuelle, aussi bien par les professionnels de l’urbanisme (architectes et urbanistes) que par les chercheurs dans le domaine.

« La ville de ceux qui existent » est une carte qui explore le rapport du sujet-chercheur au terrain à partir des parcours affectifs et émotionnels vécus lors d’une recherche ethnographique avec une famille de Roms roumains à Marseille. Ce voyage se co-constitue et se croise avec les déplacements que font les Roms entre Marseille, Lyon et la Roumanie ; et donne vie à un voyage émotionnel lié à des dimensions spatiales et temporelles variées, entre l’ici et le maintenant, l’ancrage et la mobilité, les souvenirs et les désirs futurs. Les relations qui se créent entre le sujet-chercheur t, les Roms et les marges de la ville sont ici explorées à travers la cartographie des affects et des émotions, dans le but de montrer la manière dont les affects et les émotions réarticulent constamment les spatialités et les temporalités qui constituent la vie dans les marges d’une part et de l’autre, la manière dont cette expérience a changé mon rapport au terrain et à la ville, ma façon de la regarder, de la sentir, de la pratiquer.. La carte, hybridation de mots, d’images et de dessins, contient et véhicule un méta-discours sur la rencontre avec l’Autre inhérente à toute ethnographie et qui concerne d’abord et surtout le partage d’un espace affectif et émotionnel. Se plonger dans le quotidien de ces Roms et de leurs gestes ordinaires – manger, s’habiller, dormir, sourire, désirer, rêver – ; concentrer le regard sur les personnes et leurs espaces de vie, sur les émotions, les affects et l’interaction que nous avons partagés : cela permet de juxtaposer d’autres histoires à celles, souvent stigmatisantes, qu’on a l’habitude d’entendre et qui font des Roms un cas extrême de marginalité.

Algeria's interest in the fight against global warming and its commitment to reduce its GHG emissions by 2030 requires research into operational solutions to support this effort. That entails establishing new urban planning tools, especially at the local scale in cities, since cities must exploit their full potential to set up mitigation strategies. The interest of Industrial Symbioses in optimizing the industrial metabolism led us to explore such a potential for the operational urban planning needs focused on reducing CO2 emissions. This article aims to study a Low Carbon Urban Symbiosis (LC-UrS) performance at Algiers local scale. Based on a systemic approach, the study defines, firstly, the concerned urban system. Secondly, it explores its perimeter's symbiotic potential to build a database allowing develop the possible symbiotic scenarios and quantify their performance in energy optimization and CO2 emissions reduction. The gains are then estimated for each scenario. An urban design strategy for the considered optimal scenario is proposed under an action plan for LC-UrS. The results bring interesting insights into energy optimization and CO2 emissions reduction, with estimated rates of 30.5% and 13.27% per year, in Algerian's capital city case. This optimizing potential will be even more significant for other cities in the world, particularly with the increase in urban waste. However, implementing such a strategy would require background conditions.

Jamais un art ne s’est autant reconnu non seulement dans ses traités ou dans ses essais théoriques, mais plus généralement encore dans son écriture, que l’architecture. L’ensemble de l’architecture occidentale et de son histoire se place sous le signe du texte, les architectures dites « moderne », « postmoderne », voire « contemporaine » aussi bien que l’architecture humaniste et classique qui a porté le traité à son plus haut. Derrière les courants, les styles, les formes d’architecture, des plus banals aux moins attendus, se cachent le plus souvent des livres. Les contributions rassemblées dans ce livre, qui émanent de philosophes, d'historiens de l'art, de théoriciens de l'architecture et de psychanalystes, parcourent des séquences ou s’arrêtent sur quelque point saillant, voire singulier, de cette longue tradition littéraire pour interroger l’incidence, à première vue décisive, du texte sur l’architecture et, en creux, les raisons que celle-ci a encore et toujours de lui échapper.

L’architecture dans les Andes semble agir comme agent instaurateur d’un rapport cosmologique et non comme représentant de l’ensemble cosmique qui demanderait à être manifesté avec d’autres moyens. Ce sont plutôt les vases, comme pièces indépendantes susceptibles d’accéder à la représentation d’une totalité partielle, qui joueraient le rôle d’une figuration systémique du cosmos. Les maquettes d’architecture(donc des miniatures) trouvent dès lors une place logique dans l’art des vases : celle d’un opérateur qui s’établit dans un champ de fragments cosmologiques contrastés où il prend place pour concourir à distribuer l’ensemble des lieux où les choses se logent et se meuvent.

Cities occupy only nearly 3% of the world’s land surface. However, they account for over 75% of global natural resource consumption and contribute to about 70% of greenhouse gas emissions (UNEP International Resource Panel). Thus, human activities in cities are drivers of multiple environmental challenges, which are likely to increase with an expected rise to 70-80% of the global urban population by 2050, and their effects extend over all the ecosystems of the world. Cities are human ecosystems where social, economic, biological and ecological components work together forming a system of feedback loops and interactions. These interactions in urban ecosystems are guided through human values, agency, and perceptions. An ecological understanding of cities can help conceptualize them as key socioeconomic and environmental “nodes” where great potential exists for sustainability-oriented innovations in resource management and the mitigation of pollutant emissions, climate change, and other negative externalities of resource consumption. For several decades now, the need for sustainable development has emerged across different systems working in human societies on a global level. However, the challenge remains to integrate the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability. The focus of this Chapter is to read environmental sustainability through a socioeconomic lens. Towards this, the role of transition to innovative socioeconomic models and “metabolic” approaches has been explored here, learning from main insights from the chapters in this book.

In a context of global warming, summer thermal comfort is a key issue for the design and operation of nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEBs). Although there are various methods and benchmarks for the long-term evaluation of summer thermal conditions in free-running buildings, their application to the residential sector is still debated. Based on data from post-occupancy measurements and survey campaigns, this paper evaluates the compliance with commonly used overheating criteria defined by existing standards (CIBSE and Passive House Institute) of 23 nZEB houses in Wallonia (Belgium). The quantitative relationship between measured and perceived comfort is statistically analysed, and building characteristics leading to the most critical overheating situations are qualitatively discussed. The results show that summer thermal discomfort is frequent in nZEB houses in Wallonia, despite its temperate climate. In living rooms, the long-term appraisal of thermal conditions appears to be related to the frequency of extreme temperatures, while occupants’ thermal perception in bedrooms seems to be more affected by smaller temperature deviations. These results imply a critical review of the capacity of the criteria commonly used for the evaluation of overheating risks in free-running residential buildings to predict the satisfaction of occupants with their summer thermal comfort. More generally, the findings reinforce the importance of a better integration, even in temperate climates, of environmental controls – and their required operation by the occupants – to properly mitigate overheating risks in nZEB houses.

Focusing on the mobility aspects of big cities and metropolises, the paper starts with the assessment that the Slow City is linked, in terms of mobility, to slowing down traffic. This paper proposes the following working hypothesis: if the Slow City concept is relevant for making our bigger cities sustainable, it needs, in terms of mobility, to be adapted to the slowest mode of transportation: walking. To that extent, our research develops atool to evaluate the design of public spaces with regard to their affordance to walking (walkability) and to their prioritization of pedestrian mobility.

The provision of daylight, fresh air, and of a view outdoors are among the known characteristics of windows. But how does the perception of a window differ when it becomes the primary way of connecting to the physical world outside? In the first half of 2020, many countries resorted to strict lockdown measures to control the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The impact of such confinement, and the restriction to movement and social contact between people, is currently undergoing intense research. As such, this study reports the findings of a global online survey, administered before and after the COVID-19 outbreak,aimed at identifying whether any significant difference related to the lockdown could be observed in the perception of windows. The results confirm a practically relevant increase in the importance given to windows as a way to provide an external view and a visual and social connection with other people. Conversely, the role of the window as a conveyor of information on weather and time of the day was less prevalent. This is one of the first studies evaluating the difference in the perception of windows within a period of enforced lockdown. The findings can help capture the psychological impacts of confinement on people and may be relevant when transferred to other domains where building occupants could strongly benefit from the restorative effects of window views.

With people spending up to 90% of their time in indoor spaces, windows and the visual connection that they afford to the outside, can play an important role in ensuring physical and psychological well-being. This is particularly relevant in urban settings, a substantial part of our lives, whilst still being significantly understudied. What we know from other environments may not translate to cities, and there may be important differences between the expressed preferences of individuals and their behaviour. Therefore, this study sought to define suitable methods and metrics to measure view preference in urban environments. Participants were asked to observe urban views whilst three types of data were collected: subjective preference ratings; eye-tracking measures and verbal reasoning. We found that when views were preferred, the gaze of the observers was more exploratory, with a higher occurrence of fixations and number of saccades. In addition, participants tend to prefer the presence of people, well-maintained buildings and orderly presented colours. A new link was revealed between the degree of visual exploration and the preference rating of a visual scene. This characteristic pattern of oculomotor behaviour may guide the criteria for framing selected views and accordingly inform window design in buildings.

There is growing need for new buildings to support the urbanization and demographic boom in developing countries. These buildings should be environmentally friendly, economically accessible and, most importantly, thermally efficient. The latter aspect is particularly important when dealing with naturally ventilated buildings in hot-dry regions. For this purpose, the thermal design of walls based on compressed earth blocks (CEB) need to be studied in order to achieve optimal use of this material. The present study aimed at experimentally analysing the indoor thermal performance of a test building which has three different design (wall layers) of external wall and two scenario of ventilation. Thermal sensors was used on the test building in order to determine the indoor and outdoor air temperature as well as the surface temperature of the walls. The results show that the location of wall layers influences the indoor climate. When CEBs layer is placed inside, it leads to the highest reduction of the indoor temperature fluctuations. When CEBs layer is placed outside, it presents the best opportunity to prevent overheating in building spaces mainly occupied at night. Regardless of the wall design, nocturnal ventilation is the most suitable strategy which leads to improving the indoor climate compared to continuous ventilation. It is highlighted that the occupancy pattern of the buildings’ spaces as well as the addition of the insulation layer to the CEBs walls are important factor to consider for the design of external walls.

Les espaces intermédiaires, libres et ouverts, au statut juridique souvent ambigu, sont caractéristiques des grands ensembles de logements construits dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. Ils sont aussi une des conditions à l’appropriation matérielle habitante et, par là même, à l’engagement politique au sein d’un collectif. C’est ce que nous avons cherché à montrer dans cet article, à partir de trois grands ensembles toulousains. En quoi les appropriations habitantes des espaces intermédiaires constituent-elles un acte politique et à quelles logiques spatiales et sociales répondent-elles ? Dans un premier temps, après avoir introduit le corpus étudié et défini les notions utilisées, nous présentons différents types d’appropriations habitantes se tenant dans ces grands ensembles. Dans un second temps, nous étudions les espaces supports les plus propices aux appropriations habitantes et quelques logiques spatiales de ces appropriations. Enfin, nous interrogeons les appropriations comme actes de revendication et par eux, l’identité des habitants engagés dans ces pratiques et les valeurs défendues. Nous en retirons trois manières de faire paysage avec les espaces intermédiaires du grand ensemble., Intermediate spaces, free and open, which often have an ambiguous legal status, are characteristic of the large housing estates built in the second half of the 20th century. They also provide a support for the appropriation by the inhabitants of their living space and a setting in which to express creativity. The article hypothesises that these appropriations, both individual and collective, embody a certain relationship to space, but also to the other and to society. In this respect, they include a political dimension. This is what we propose to examine in three large housing estates in Toulouse. In what way do the inhabitants’ appropriations of intermediate spaces constitute a political act and to what spatial and social rationale do they correspond? The first part introduces the body of research and proposes a theoretical analysis of the appropriations of inhabitants in these large housing estates. The second part focuses on the spatial configurations that are conducive to the inhabitants expressing themselves and the conditions in which individual and collective appropriations acquire a political dimension. Finally, the last part presents a possible typology of ways of forming a landscape with the intermediate spaces of large housing estates.

The article explores the construction of hydraulic dams and reservoirs on the Eau d'Heure river, between 1971 and 1980, in a rural site upstream from the industrial Sambre-et-Meuse valley. The case study aims at questioning the making of the postwar Belgian landscape, by bringing together two predominant and at first glance antagonistic entities: infrastructural networks and leisure facilities, respectively embodying the material and cultural backbone of the Welfare State. The angle of attack is thus that of hybridity and contamination between disjointed spheres, whose interactions will be traced and articulated to the site design. The dams project is at the crossroads of multiple narratives and scales. As part of the national postwar infrastructure modernization plans, it responds to macro-economic ambitions and is indirectly embedded in the first stages of the European integration project. Concurrently, it represents a place of controversies and negotiations fueled by the claims of the inhabitants of the valleys threatened by flooding and marked by the progressive enlistment of local authorities, crystallized around the idea of reshaping the site for mass leisure. The dams - simultaneously bearing the attributes of a recreational healthy nature and those of the radical artificialization of the country’s resources in freshwater - turn out to be a condensed sample of what Bruno Latour calls ‘the proliferation of hybrids’, populated by entities that are, at once, natural, social and narrated (Latour, 1991, p7-17). From the 1930s anticipatory action of the modernist architect Victor Bourgeois in favor of hygiene-oriented leisure practices to the successive interventions of the Ministry of Public Works, the engineer-architect Jean Barthelemy and the urban-planner Raymond Lemaire, the article will question the role played by architecture and urban design in this hybrid narrative: do these spatial interventions constitute practices of mediation and/or of purification (La

The scientific literature lacks comprehensive and updated information regarding the airtightness of building components, this hindering the development and improvement of models for a robust prediction of their performance. To fill this gap, this paper presents a meta-analysis conducted on literature studies reporting laboratory and in-situ measurements of airtightness for various building components. Meta-analysis is a powerful methodological tool to compare and combine data from previous research, even when they have inherent differences. The results of the meta-analysis allowed to attain three outcomes: a classification of building components related to their airtightness performance; the update and improvement of existing databases of building component airtightness; and, the identification of factors specifically influencing airtightness performances of windows. In addition, the critical appraisal of the findings led to the definition of the requirements for future studies reporting measurements of airtightness of building components. This study offers a step ahead from existing knowledge by improving existing databases and by proposing a methodological framework of analysis that can be extended to several other domains of the built environment.

Soil has been used as building material for thousands of years with a decrease in popularity after the industrial revolution. Nowadays, there is a growing interest in the implementation of unfired soil-based building solutions for their low environmental impact, performances and availability. Traditional soil construction techniques have recurrently included vegetal fibres to enhance soil performance and recent studies highlight a predominant use of agro and non-agro waste for unfired soil construction. The article reviews the state-of-the-art of the use of excavated soil and biowaste in the construction industry including a novel focus on urban-only waste and on building technologies using the integration of these two secondary construction material flows. Our literature review highlights a lack of references about the joint use of these secondary resources. Finally, future research orientations are suggested to promote their implementation in the building sector, which could improve urban waste management.

De hauts volumes de briques se devinent, à peine quittée la Brusselsepoort. Au travers d’une impasse qui rejoint l’intérieur d’îlot, entre les textures mêlées d’annexes et vérandas ordinaires des maisons voisines: des murs rouges, joints bavants. Au loin, les clochers. Malines est une ville d’églises et d’écoles. Les églises se dressent haut et les écoles creusent de larges cours. Le complexe scolaire des Ursulines est construit d’une de ces séquences de pleins et de vides. L’extension de l’école s’inscrit dans un processus itératif d’ajouts et de transformations d’édifices bâtis. Tout supplément demande pourtant de ménager avec justesse et précaution les vides qui organisent cette petite ville dans la ville.

Resilience is a multifaceted and multi-scaled concept combining individual will, collective actions and territorial perspective. A territorial approach to resilience contributes to closing the gap that separates the theoretical knowledge of resilience from its translation into spatial plans and projects and establishes a conscious and adaptive relationship between a given region and its resources (environment, infrastructure, society, culture and economy). This chapter presents the case study of Marais du Cotentin et du Bessin Natural Park in Normandy (France), which hosts a vast wetland area of international ecological interest. Historically, these wetlands have been used for farming and their vegetation has been incorporated in traditional architecture. Due to changes in both farming practices and architectural features, these lands need constant maintenance to avoid reforestation, protect biodiversity, and maintain the provision of a broad range of ecosystem services. Protection, restoration and maintenance activities reveal new uses for the biomass produced by wetland vegetation. The aim of this study is to understand how a selection of Norman wetland plants could be used for the production of building materials, thereby increasing the value of the local species and ensuring the site’s maintenance. The research revolves around two main workflows. One involves a territorial analysis which identifies territorial resources, agents and dynamics in order to assess the possibility of creating a value chain. The second involves experimental research to provide a first characterisation of the mechanical, physical and hygrothermal properties of the selected wetland plants (purple moor, rush, sedge and reed). The tests performed have revealed that wetland plants have characteristics comparable with other bio-based materials that are used for insulation or in earth-based composites. Among the plants selected, only reed was previously investigated for its suitability as a b

Circular economy is concerned with rethinking economic models to reduce both the pressure on resources and the generation of waste. The implementation of such models often implies new forms of coordination across different processes, actors and scales. The literature on value chains has struggled to conceptualise such transitions. Recent contributions have advocated to frame circular economy initiatives as giving rise to new ‘value systems’ rather than conventional value chains. Empirical studies on how such ‘circular value systems’ come about are still rare and lack a firm conceptual basis. We close this gap by applying a conceptual framework to three case studies, respectively concerned with material flows of excavated earth, urban wood and coffee grounds. Our results provide novel empirical evidence on value creation in circular economy initiatives.

L’habitation en série telle que pensée tout au long du XXe siècle par les architectes français, cumulant rigidité des procédés constructifs et répétitivité, serait tout juste bonne à être démolie. Prenant le contre-pied, la recherche « Toulouse, du grand ensemble à la ville durable, prospectives et actions* », questionne les potentiels de durabilité de cette architecture, aux échelles du quartier, du grand ensemble, de l’immeuble et du logement. Les questions portent aussi bien sur les déplacements et l’accès aux commerces ou équipements à l’échelle du quartier, sur la vie communautaire et l’état des services partagés ou lieux paysagés à l’échelle du grand ensemble que sur les éléments de confort à l’échelle du logement. Interrogeant les permanences et les transformations des dispositifs architecturaux, des équipements, des distributions, des dispositions au regard des modes d’habiter, elle prend le parti de la réutilisation- transformation. Qu’est ce qui, au regard des modes de vie est support de durabilité, soit parce qu’assez flexible pour permettre l’évolution ou le changement, soit parce qu’assez qualitatif pour être reconduit, poursuivi, voire défendu par les habitants ? Deux dimensions sont privilégiées pour relever ces permanences et ces transformations et identifier les éléments qui faisant qualité, peuvent être pensés en terme de durabilité : . Espace/usage A l’échelle du quartier, il s’agit d’analyser les dynamiques d’évolution des commerces, des équipements, des associations. La comparaison des plans d’urbanisme (entre le moment de construction du grand ensemble et la date actuelle) et les témoignages permettent de cartographier cette évolution. A l’échelle du logement, les transformations et les appropriations habitantes sont révélatrices de dispositifs architecturaux propices à l’évolution, à l’intimité, à un confort durable. Des entretiens qualitatifs et des relevés habités sur la base des plans d’origine en permettent la restitution. . Temporalité(s)

Carte blanche

Buildings and construction are major driver of anthropogenic environmental effects. While energy use and CO2 emissions of buildings and construction have been quantified, their water footprint remains understudied from an economy-wide perspective. We use environmentally-extended multi-regional input-output analysis to quantify the water, energy and carbon (dioxide) footprints associated with the construction sector of India, Italy, South Africa, and the UK, disaggregating the supply chains driving these environmental effects by using structural path analysis. Comparisons are made in terms of contributions by country, by sector, by stage of the supply chain and in terms of actual supply chain pathways. Results show that Italy and the UK have more disaggregated and international supply chains compared to India and South Africa. Total (i.e. direct + indirect) water footprints of construction sectors vary from 11.8 to 14.8 L/USD for all countries, except India at 78.1 L/USD. There was no notable correlation between water and energy and carbon dioxide footprints in terms of sectoral contributions, even if the latter two are correlated. More developed economies exhibit a higher share of international WF than developing economies. The current focus on energy and carbon dioxide footprints might therefore miss out on significant water impacts caused by construction activities, globally.