Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris La Villette

This paper explores neighbourhood‐based projects such as “local project” (Magnaghi, 2005), the strategic scenarios that set out a process of mobilisation and promotion of local resources, planned and run by local people. It focuses on two residential communities in Wua‐Lai neighbourhood, namely Chumchon Wat Muen‐Sarn and Chumchon Wat Sri‐Suphan. The analysis deals with three local projects: Wua‐Lai Walking Street and Saturday Market, Lanna Arts Study Centre and community museums. It seeks to understand how the residents use silver handicraft, Buddhist temple and local marketplaces for shaping their projects and for connecting the neighbourhood to the city. This study allows us to identify the key elements in place on which the local projects are premised and how these elements reproduce sense of belonging and sociability that create the potential for collective action. It intends to highlight on the neighbourhood capacities, and its limits, to carry out local initiatives and to challenge more economic forces.

The use of genetic algorithms as generative and performance design techniques often involves, in practice, constraint handling, which can be a complex task. Moreover, environmental simulations are computationally expensive and managing constraints can avoid wasting time on infeasible solutions. Despite these two incentives, and the benefits of an immense literature, both applied and theorical, on constrained optimization, there are only few guidelines and tools directly applicable by architects to address this issue. This paper proposes to fill this gap by identifying, classifying, and implementing different constraint management techniques available to architects. Seven methods have been tested for a highly constrained envelope design problem, consisting in the optimization of a sun-shading system. Three of them are easily replicable to different types of projects while the four others need to find a problem-specific heuristic. It appears that the second category is more efficient but implies the use of generative techniques that are more difficult to implement than parametric models.

The undeniable role of urban valleys in improving pedestrian thermal comfort along the urban streets is crucial, especially in areas with hot summers. In this research, the parameters related to thermal comfort outdoors like air temperature (Ta), surface temperature (Ts), wind speed (Ws), sky view factor (SVF), mean radiant temperature (MRT), and physiological equivalent temperature (PET) in an urban street were analyzed using ENVI-met simulation. Besides, the effects of the albedo of pavement and the percent of Fraxinous Exceliour as the dominant tree in the study area were also examined to improve thermal comfort conditions. Simultaneously with the field measurements on the site, a questionnaire was used to determine the thermal comfort range of users in urban canyons. The study also integrates with ENVI-met microclimatic modeling to improve the thermal comfort in the urban street canyon, which was used to simulate the current situation and validated with field measurements, showing a good correlation. The result has revealed that SVF is not a precise indicator for crucial radiation exposure and thermal comfort conditions despite its wide application in previous studies. Further, a notable correlation between SVF and PET is observed solely throughout sunset. Additionally, the combination of the low-albedo pavements and covering half of the street with trees (Fraxinus excelsior) can produce the most effective conditions for thermal comfort. The simulation research reveals that albedo’s effect on thermal comfort is less prominent than the tree cover. However, significant changes in albedo values and a decrease in urban heat have no significant impact on improving thermal comfort in urban canyons.

Certain confusion may be observed in the field of biomimetic architecture, as it emerges at the crossroad of two disciplinary domains: architectural design and biological sciences. If biomimetics is defined as a science, once it is applied to architecture, biomimetic architecture should logically be defined as a science too. This assertion collides with the nature of architectural design, which may rather be defined as a technology: its aim is to transform the world, not to explain it. On the one hand, there is no obvious relationship between architecture and life sciences. On the other hand, the biomimetic approach tends to redefine the concept of science itself by seeking to avoid the excesses of scientism. Moreover, existing applications of biomimetic design show that it is difficult to observe a genuine biomimetic architecture; most cases are closer to engineering component or urban planning and sometimes they involve little or no life sciences. The aim of this paper is to describe this conceptual confusion through two movements called “forcings”, occurring between design and science. These forcings are conceptualised as shifts between constructed scientific objects and given empirical objects. Models, used in biology as in architecture, allow these shifts by virtue of their double function. They are both tools for knowledge and for design, thus they may be conceptually forced into what they are not supposed to be, particularly in the field of biomimetic architecture where design process and scientific knowledge are said to meet.

La question de l’intimité dans la vie privée et ma méthode d’analyse des espaces m’ont conduite à proposer dans cet article une généalogie de l’habitation en France et un tableau des différents modes de vie urbains. Cet article historique étudie ces pratiques et les sensibilités, non seulement par l’analyse des discours savants ou non, des témoignages, de la littérature, mais aussi par celle des traces matérielles concrètes et de leurs transformations, ainsi que par la succession des plans d’habitations publiés dans les traités d’architectures à différentes périodes.

El presente artículo aborda aspectos ligados a la concepción, producción, difusión, y recepción de un texto cuya importancia en la historiografía de la arquitectura y el urbanismo lo han erigido en una obra de referencia imprescindible entre estudiantes y profesionales de estas disciplinas: se trata de Formes urbaines: de l’îlot à la barre. Traducido al español por el arquitecto Santiago Castán, y publicado por primera vez en 1986 bajo el título De la manzana al bloque por la editorial Gustavo Gili, constituye un verdadero manifiesto cuyas preocupaciones de carácter pedagógico reflejan en buena medida aquellas propias del ejercicio de la arquitectura durante el último cuarto del siglo XX. Evitando toda lectura antihistórica, el análisis aquí propuesto se apoya en una serie de aproximaciones y reflexiones para las cuales hemos reconstruido (gracias principalmente a entrevistas realizadas directamente a los protagonistas del relato, y a la consulta de sus archivos) el contexto sociocultural inmediato que hizo posible la realización del estudio inicial que dio origen al libro, en el marco de una reorganización profunda de la enseñanza de la arquitectura y del urbanismo en Francia (tras la disolución en Mayo de 1968 de la sección de Arquitectura de la École des Beaux-Arts).

In the 15th century, the miniaturists of the Timurid court in Herat conceive colors that seem to be made of pure light, without weight and volume. Their luminous colors synthesize a unique worldview from the anti‐materialistic teachings of Mani, the Sufi “world of imagination” and the alchemists' principles of transmutation. Five centuries later, our digital technologies seem to offer us such disembodied colors, which used to be the artistic dream of an artisanal culture. Pixels replace pigments, light‐colors replace matter‐colors. With the booming animation and game cultures, Tokyo becomes one of the first places that pixels invade in the 80s. A group of Japanese architects and artists seeks to express in their creations the ethereal dimension of the pixels' electronic light. Through a spatio‐temporal leap, the miniatures, as a historical reference point, reveals the emerging chromatic trends in contemporary architecture and visual culture. Could the invention of pixels be after all, stemming from an ancestral aspiration of mankind based on the sensorial and intelligible duality of his nature?

As a highly interdisciplinary field, architecture is being influenced by many subjects of natural and social sciences. Biology despite being apparently distant from architecture is currently a scientific field blending into design practices, which have evolved and shifted towards a new hybrid framework. In this article, we present an emerging design field of what we categorize as biomimetic architecture pioneering by six architectural offices in France. We observe the impact of scientific researches on design processes and practices through six case studies led by these offices, which can be seen through the actors who involved in various types of interdisciplinary collaborations, through the competencies of the architect himself, and through new sources of ideas coming from biological sciences and related fields. We propose to use a classification of theoretical uses in modeling practice to better understand the role that biological knowledge plays in architectural design practices. Finally, the result of this analysis shows that the use of biology taking place in a design space has external purposes, which transform it to produce engineering devices or urban schemes rather than architectural projects. It also shows that biology in architectural design induces other kinds of non-biological knowledge, is not strictly theoretical and could be obsolete or approximate. These findings lead to an epistemological discussion concerning the confusion between biological ‘knowledge’ and architectural design ‘know-how’.

This data article relates to and complement the research paper: "Assessment of climate change mitigation policies in 315 cities in the Covenant of Mayors initiative" [1]. The reported data has been collected and elaborated within the framework of the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) initiative. The dataset is extracted from the overall database of the initiative reported through the platform MyCovenant. The data deals with the Monitoring Emission Inventories submitted by local authorities by 2016. Data has been processed and elaborated to highlights specific features of signatories and the policies they have adopted in the development of their Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAP). Available data relate to the mitigation policies in the SEAPs and includes their carbon reduction potential, the status of implementation and the class of governance. The CoM gathers together thousands of local authorities who voluntary committed to decarbonisation and increase resilience in their territory. Therefore, this data can be of interest for local policy makers and urban planners to identify successful examples in cities with comparable contexts and to identify possible measures in several sectors for climate change mitigation.

With an ongoing growing population of around 21 million people, Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, struggles not only with how to deal with its waste but with garbage sent illegally mostly from the United States and Europe. The former Olusosun landfill, the largest waste dump in Africa and one of the largest in the world, used to receive about 3,000 to 5,000 tons of trash per day, filling the dumpsite almost to its near capacity. After the local government decided to close the landfill, the city has started to search for solutions to rehabilitate the site. In an effort to include an anchor program, the stadium becomes the natural meeting point for the neighborhood: an evolutive, flexible and transformable infinite bamboo based-unit structure. In response to new much-needed regards towards waste, bamboo resources seeded on the site become the local building material. A mix of social spaces, dedicated to enjoying the sport on game days, as well as dwellings and local public programs to be occupied all year by the local community, blend in a small-scale system. Finally, the aggregation can grow in each direction to meet all needs of various situations, with potential multiplication of the system at the scale of the neighborhood or city.

Although the works of Frederick Law Olmsted – such as Central Park, Prospect Park, Franklin Park, Riverside – are today widely recognized and appreciated, some of them having, in fact, been the object of important restoration work, the thinking which engendered them is much more unfamiliar, notably due to its complexity. The mission of landscape architecture, as it is defined by Olmsted, is above all social: to improve the living conditions of the population, beginning with the most unfavored. It is not just a matter of providing breathing spaces, but of allowing people to experience places capable of appeasing their minds.

The Paris agreement recognises the key role of local authorities in reaching the 1,5 °C target. The Covenant of Mayors (CoM) has been an unprecedented phenomenon in the arena of transnational initiatives in climate action at local level. The initiative has expanded tremendously over the past 10 years, covering more than 9 600 local authorities and 327 million inhabitants as of June 2019. This study analyses policies and measures adopted and implemented by local authorities, signatories to the CoM, as reported in their Monitoring Emission Inventories (MEI). More than 12 000 policies reported in 315 MEIs have been assessed. The policies adopted in municipalities across Europe have been classified according to two criteria: (1) the type of policy tool and (2) the field of action. The aggregated policies have then be correlated with the grouping of signatories according to three "contextual" drivers. The contextual drivers allow identifying the factors that may influence the distribution of climate and energy policies and successful examples and methodologies that may be replicated in other cities with comparable characteristics and similar contexts. Overall, results show that the most common policies cover municipal assets and structures. The policies adopted by local governments do change with the population and, therefore, the focus on municipal assets changes with the increase of population, while local authorities’ Gross Domestic Products and climatic conditions have limited influence on the selection and distribution of policies in the framework of this study.

This paper presents an analysis of three area-based initiatives’ in a stigmatized neighborhood of Naples (Scampia). It is based on ethnographic material collected between 2013 and 2014. We focus on the relationship between territorial stigmatisation and local actors within these initiatives.The aim is: to contribute to the debate on the «coping» strategies that the local actors of a disadvantaged territory put in place with respect to the stigma of their context; to broaden the framework of the debate on the processes of commodification of stigma. Finally, this contribution could also add to the debate surrounding the effects of area-based initiative.

Cranial lymphatic vessels (LVs) are involved in the transport of fluids, macromolecules and central nervous system (CNS) immune responses. Little information about spinal LVs is available, because these delicate structures are embedded within vertebral tissues and difficult to visualize using traditional histology. Here we show an extended vertebral column LV network using three-dimensional imaging of decalcified iDISCO+-clarified spine segments. Vertebral LVs connect to peripheral sensory and sympathetic ganglia and form metameric vertebral circuits connecting to lymph nodes and the thoracic duct. They drain the epidural space and the dura mater around the spinal cord and associate with leukocytes. Vertebral LVs remodel extensively after spinal cord injury and VEGF-C-induced vertebral lymphangiogenesis exacerbates the inflammatory responses, T cell infiltration and demyelination following focal spinal cord lesion. Therefore, vertebral LVs add to skull meningeal LVs as gatekeepers of CNS immunity and may be potential targets to improve the maintenance and repair of spinal tissues.

Kampung Sruni is an urban settlement located in the Dieng plateau region, Wonosobo Regency, Central Java. Along with population growth, new house buildings have been being constructed. Unfortunately, these new houses are being built with a lack quality of planning: the availability of green space, natural air circulation, natural lighting, and material. Improving the conditions of houses with urban acupuncture pattern seems to be the most respectful way. Three site locations are chosen—according to the different contexts of topography and surrounding neighborhood. On these sites, houses are designed specifically to each site context. However, these houses have same design logic. The tropicality is emphasized by arrangement of space elements—wall, openings, and materials—to obtain fresh air circulation and natural lighting penetration along the day. Another important idea is to put large enough space to generate family's economy: to be freely used for shop, workshop, gallery, even guest house.

This paper aims to study the process of the collective architectural conception. We propose to analyze the collective practices in architecture through the exploration of various situations of collective design. Otherwise, we carried out an architecturological study of the architectural design process of some artifacts observed within three architectural agencies. In order to describe the model that characterizes the agency, we question the recurrent cognitive operations from an architecturological analysis grid that allows to identify the repetitions between the processes. Recurrent methodical and representational operations have been also identified; together they characterize the “architecturological style” of the agency. In the same way, organizational and graphical recurrences have been decrypted from the analysis of the empirical charters set up in architecture agencies.

Les projets d'aménagement urbain en zone inondable se présentent comme des configurations - à la fois spatiales et actorielles - lors desquelles sont mises en œuvre des transactions entre la ville et l'eau afin d'intégrer le risque d'inondation et aboutir à une forme d'urbanisme résilient. L'étude transversale de quatre projets d'aménagement urbain développés en zone inondable constructible en France - le quartier Rives de Maine à Angers, le quartier Berges de la Robine à Narbonne, le quartier de l'Eure St-Nicolas au Havre et le quartier Matra à Romorantin - permet de faire ressortir les grandes catégories de transactions nécessaires à un urbanisme résilient. Nous identifions tout d'abord trois grands types d'espaces génériques de transaction ville/risque d'inondation, qui sont des solutions d'organisation de l'espace adaptées au risque d'inondation et constituent donc des réponses à l'enjeu de l'urbanisation résiliente des zones inondables : les espaces surélevés, les transparences hydrauliques, l'aménagement paysager de l'interface ville/eau. Nous montrons ensuite que la prise en compte de l'inondation dans un projet d'aménagement urbain tient à la capacité des acteurs du projet à articuler registre technique et registre sensible, mais aussi à leur capacité à articuler logique réglementaire et logique de projet. Il s'agit de rendre possible la confrontation des différents acteurs et l'invention de solutions d'organisation de l'espace qui soient le résultat de négociations inventives.

Le Corbusier collected about 2,300 postcards throughout all of his life but he never showed them to anyone, keeping them in the intimacy of his apartment. They are nowadays held in the archives of the F.L.C., filed by geographic origin. However, this system is not suited to unravel its signification. As opposed to a mere “classification”, we would like to present the concept of "poetical assemblage": the meaning of each postcard is studied not only by the subject it portraits, but through its relation with other items in the collection and even further, through its confrontation with other tools the architect employed to understand the world: painting, sketching, writing, photographing, and his architectural projects. Instead of creating a linear and univocal analytical system, the “poetical assemblage” brings an open system composed by four different “sections” which should be understood as four spheres with porous and diffuse limits able to interact. This research reveals the varying possibilities engaged in this approach. They have been summarized in three main goals which are intermingled in growing degrees: inspiration, education and verification. A whole array of graphic examples will provide evidences of the capacity of the architect to synthesize subjects and concepts regardless time and space. Stability and transition are the guiding keys to jump from image to image and from panel to panel, at the same time evoking the tradition and building the present.

The period of the early 1870s–1914 was characterized by an intensification and internationalization of intellectual exchanges and projects of collecting. Spaces were conceived in which to store these collections, to organize them, to make them accessible and intelligible. The spatial organization of universal knowledge may be fruitfully examined through the comparison of two figures. Patrick Geddes (1854–1932), a Scottish naturalist, general thinker, unsettling polymath, and social activist, believed in popular education and dissemination of knowledge as vectors of emancipation and social progress. Paul Otlet (1868–1944), a Belgian lawyer and a utopian of classification of knowledge, devoted his energy and his family fortune to several universal projects and in particular to what he called the Mundaneum, a chimerical international meta-institution.

In the first decade of the 20th century, French illustrated news journals — and especially 'L’Illustration' — published articles on the skyscrapers of New York. Through the diachronic analysis of word-image relations at work in these journals, this article reveals how the publishing of this new building type — within an equally new cityscape — moved within a single decade towards new forms that were the product of inverted hierarchies between the written and the graphic. The spectacular double-page photographs taken with an unusual viewing axis gave the clearest expression of it. These photographs, preceding those famously taken by Alvin Coburn, were a means developed by the journal editors to convey strong sensations to its readership. With this evolution towards architecture as sensational news in which the reader became the protagonist, the general-interest journals offered a completely different approach visually compared to the conventional way architecture journals published the same skyscrapers. This episode in publishing New York buildings represented the beginning of an important rift between the general public’s and the architectural expert’s ways of perceiving and experiencing architecture and the city.