What future for the individual houses areas ?
The latest edition of the "Cahiers de l’ASPAN" is dedicated to the future of individual houses areas. In connection with the ongoing research project LIVING PERIPHERIES supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) contributed with two articles on the specificities of the individual houses area and on the important challenges of transition energy for suburban areas.
The individual houses area is one of the built environment components, which existence was strongly marked by the rise of the individual house during the 20th century last decades.
Despite a context characterized by a general shift towards urban densification, countless peri-urban individual houses continue to be built each year in Switzerland, as in most European countries. However, these low density constructions situated in single function neighborhoods far from public transport appear to be in contradiction with most of the principles of sustainability.
What will happen to these vast peri-urban areas? Some of them will be doomed to remain dormant by a mismatch to societal changes, particularly related to the attractiveness found by regenerated cities, reducing the size of households, the emergence of a long-life society or increased costs incurred by mobility? Is it possible to develop specific strategies to anticipate this risk and to evaluate towards more sustainability? In this perspective, how can one compare, in a multi-criteria manner, the different strategies of possible transformation?
The latest edition of the Cahiers de l’ASPAN journal induces a series of reflections with regard to these future inescapable questions faced by the constructed environment actors. These questions are also at the heart of the stakes explored by the research project LIVING PERIPHERIES, developed with the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) support.
Exceeding the only critical analysis of existing neighborhoods, this research project aims to assess the possibilities of transformation of these particular sectors by testing different strategies on existing suburban neighborhoods of individual houses by evaluating them in a multidimensional way. Both published articles allow to highlight some preliminary results of this research project :
Frédéric Frank, Emmanuel REY, « Zone villa : grandeur et décadence d’un modèle ». Les Cahiers de l’ASPAN , November 2015, pp. 4-11.
Judith DROUILLES, Emmanuel REY, « Les quartiers périurbains face aux défis de la transition énergétique ». Les Cahiers de l’ASPAN , November 2015, pp. 12-17.