Which architecture for the sustainable city ?
Entitled "La ville en devenir", number 17 of the journal TRACES is dedicated to the Ecoparc Forum. Facing the questioning posed by urban sprawl, the various articles selected, of which those of Professors Emmanuel Rey from the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) and Bruno Marchand from the Theory and History of Architecture Laboratory (LTH2), presented a certain number of strategies in relation to the integration of sustainability in urban and architectural projects.
Urban sprawl not only leads to an inefficient use of the land and an increasing pressure on landscape, but also to an increase of infrastructural costs and environmental impacts. In front of these multiple consequences, a consensus is progressively growing to redirect the development of built areas inwards and to focus on the process of urban densification. In a sustainability optic, the return in town is not and by far limited only to quantitative aspects. Taking into account environmental, socio-cultural and economical aspects also raise numerous questions on quality.
In this optic, the various contributions offer a vision on the architectural strategies and operational issues linked to the emergence of the compact city. Amongst the authors in this issue alongside Professors Emmanuel Rey and Bruno Marchand, may we name the visionary architect Luc Schuiten, the Director of the Federal Housing Office Ernst Hauri, Professor Darren Robinson from the University of Nottingham and Pascal Gontier, architect and professor at the ENSA of Paris-Malaquais.