Book launch of URBAN RECOVERY
Edited at the Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes (PPUR), the book URBAN RECOVERY presents a synthesis of multiples teaching and research activities elaborated at the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) for the Gare-Lac sector in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland. By an interdisciplinary approach at various intervention scales - from urban design to constructive detail - they aim at experimenting, assessing and comparing various urban shapes in a perspective of urban sustainability. The book launch will take place on December 1st, 2015 at 6:00 pm in the Project Room (Foyer of the SG building) at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
Questioning the consequences of urban sprawl and functional dissociation leads to promoting territorial densification strategies based on an increased coordination between urbanization and mobility and on a search for functional mix. In this context, urban wastelands represent a highly interesting potential of surfaces to be reclaimed. Often situated in strategic locations, they are already connected to existing technical and transport networks. Therefore, they are a unique opportunity to revitalize entire city sectors awaiting a new future.
In a sustainability perspective however, density is a necessary but not sufficient condition. To encompass the environmental, sociocultural, and economic dimensions of sustainable development, the densification of urban wastelands raises a large number of questions for the architectural project.
The site on which the research and teaching work presented in URBAN RECOVERY focuses constitutes an investigation field particularly well adapted to the exploration of these multiple issues. This sector of the city of Yverdon-les-Bains, highly emblematic of urban regeneration issues, currently hosts a significant number of wastelands. It represents approximately 25 hectares to regenerate, ideally situated between the railway station and the Lake of Neuchâtel.
The book launch will include short speeches by Prof. Luca Ortelli, Head of the Institute of Architecture and the City (IA), Prof. Bruno Marchand, Head of the Laboratory of Theory and History 2 (LTH2) and Prof. Emmanuel Rey, Head of the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST).
Urban Recovery | Emmanuel Rey (Ed.)
Preface by Bruno Marchand.
Contributions by Marilyne Andersen, Suren Erkman, Alain Guye, Martine Laprise, Sophie Lufkin, Emilie Nault, Giuseppe Peronato and Emmanuel Rey.
Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2015, 168 pages.
ISBN 978-2-88915-125-7