Civil society | EPFL Graph Search

Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere. By other authors, civil society is used in the sense of

the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that advance the interests and will of citizens or
individuals and organizations in a society which are independent of the government.

Sometimes the term civil society is used in the more general sense of "the elements such as freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, etc, that make up a democratic society" (Collins English Dictionary). Especially in the discussions among thinkers of Eastern and Central Europe, civil society is seen also as a normative concept of civic values. Etymology The term civil society goes back to Aristotle's phrase koinōnía politikḗ (κοινωνία πολιτική), occurring in his Politics, where it refers to a 'political community' commensurate with the Greek city-state (polis),

Les étudiants, l'université de masse et la ville durable

Ismail Haddad

In a globalized space where mobility is growing, the capacities of attraction of the city are becoming increasingly decisive. Between the cities, through its attractive quality and attraction capacity, the university will become a decisive factor of location activity. The contribution of the capacity of city culture, development of meeting places is fantastic. Universities cannot live permanently on their side, next to the city. However, for too long, the city and the university in Tunisia have developed in ignorance of each other. Universities, since they have existed, admit with difficulties contingencies of civil societies. Governments are wary of students and teachers. This latent divorce materialized especially through the creation of campus, away from city centers in the functionality and the monotony of isolation. The urban university countdown is now universally condemned. Addressing universities as major facilities for both generating modern middle classes and meet the needs of these classes is probably a new perspective in the architectural and urban studies in Tunisia. Investigate the essence of the university and its space, understand, give it a face, it takes to trace the sources of the university, the genesis of the position in relation to our time, in any its specificity, to lay a few landmarks able to give an account for the complexity of its course. Why, how, by whom and under what conditions taking shape at a given time an edifice (the university) from a social vocation? What general needs and specific answers? In short, what is the territorial space that University now covers? In this sense, the systemic approach presents an additional interest because it proposes to connect into a single and same application dimensions of reality that are sometimes addressed separately by different disciplines and different actors, professional town planning, culture, life student or teaching. Indeed, we have chosen to begin this research by presenting a sample of general policies of academic development in an international perspective. In a second stage, we will continue research on the same theme, but by focusing it on Tunisia. In this context, we will consider the current inadequacy between the university and the changing needs of society. In the third part, we will study the spatial impact and synergy between the university and the economic environment. This theme is central to the debate on the complex interactions of urban dynamics and local development. We will conclude by reviewing the first two parts in the light of the results of the third. Furthermore, this research involved a provision of knowledge, which is able to provide solid foundations for working professionals in architecture and urban, social scientists, lawyers, economists and current officials in charge to define strategies and projects of agglomeration.

EPFL2009

Le temple d'Hathor à Dendara

Pierre Zignani

Dendara, July 16, 54 BCE, began the reconstruction of the temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor. Founded under Ptolemy XII, the temple studied here stands at the end of an architectural tradition developed over three millennia. Its state of conservation is exceptional. It is the latest preserved monumental cult building of the pharaonic civilisation. It is a particularly well-suited testimony for an attempt to comprehend the architectural conception of a culture with which no modern society has kept any direct connection. The starting point of this study is a precise survey which constitutes the scientific documentation. The establishment of these data went along with the observation of indications, dimensions, orientations and alterations which allows to identify constant characteristics belonging to the process of designing the structure of the temple. This study uses no technical methodology but rather presents a research of knowledge through observation, hypotheses and verification. There is no pretension to exhaustiveness. This study tries to find, from the territory to the details, breaches, or to give access, into the knowledge belonging to the way of designing. The plans and sections are accompanied by a research which begins with a presentation of the nature of the architectural study of the building belonging to a disappeared culture. Then follows the study of the Egyptian temple and of the technical details of the survey. A building belongs to a territory. The absence of any documentation, the disappearance of vestiges dug out since the end of the 19th century as well as the actual policy of land reclaiming on the site made a cartography of the whole area of the ancient city necessary as a salvage. This led to some thoughts about the urban shape around the temple and about the limits of the space between the divine and the civil world. The reconstruction of a temenos wall brought with it a large reorganisation and renovation of the city and caused an important tabula rasa of civil districts. A global description of the building precedes the chapter concerning the organisation of the space. The world being set up around the god, it progresses from the most holy place towards the civil environment. The system underlying the height of the different spaces can only be determined when taking the heart of the temple as point of origin. Particular attention was devoted to the means which the ancient builders had at their disposal in order to control the precision of their accomplishment. Although rules concerning the outer measurements of the naos and the inner volume of the cella could be determined, it is impossible to reduce the dimensioning of the Egyptian space to a system of constant proportions. The study of the use of the space confirms this statement as it reveals that the functional elements of doors and windows do not follow any ideal formal rules. They are the result of a topological conception where geometric accuracy sacralises different needs; sometimes trivial when one considers light as a physical agent necessary to the daily functioning of human beings in a structure belonging to the divine. The intelligence and the accuracy of these accomplishments clearly required a global and initial conception of the architectural object. The durability of the building was the ultimate reason for the designers' research of technical quality. No single part of the construction, from the foundations to the top of the cornices, escaped this ancient concern. This led to an evolution towards a monolithic character of the masonry and the integration of solutions to contain factors of degradation, such as the rain. This concern also includes a tradition of a seismic culture as well as an execution which optimises the performance of labour and the materials. In parallel to this evolution on can observe the emergence of an ancient analysis of the phenomenon of differential sinking and the development of details which allow a dynamic management of major sources of destruction. Computer modelling helped to check the pertinence of some of these ultimate systems of management of deformation. From the temple of Hathor at Dendara one can conclude that the competence of building has attained a high degree of complexity and of meaning as far as the production of an architectural form is concerned which had to obey to an ideal of perfection and inalterability. Beyond the secular world, the formal conceptualisation of the divine universe also became an intellectual challenge with various referential levels. The architectural composition went along with an active research of technical solutions in order to optimise the art of building.

EPFL2004

Violences, sécurités et territoires

Charlotte Boisteau

The phenomenon of urban violence and the resulting sense of insecurity are at the very heart of contemporary urban dynamics. In order to respond to the growing public demand for security, various public, private, and community measures contribute to the new urban policies of large cities. This new configuration that comprises security enforcement operates as a "meta-game", in which numerous global economic and civil society actors, such as private security companies and neighborhood communities, are called upon to participate. With regard to security, the principle of governance implies a loss of the State's monopoly of legitimate violence. We have therefore evolved from a regulatory mode, based on disciplinary institutions, to the political inclusion of actors, concepts and means of providing security that jeopardize governability: we no longer know who governs who and the physical and social urban landscapes have been modified. By focusing on urban development practices that aim to physically resolve insecurity problems and perceptions in cities, our objective is to analyze the extent to which the governance system of security has led to a radical and significant transformation of cities and the practices of its inhabitants, notably through the reinforcement of spatial and social fragmentations. Unequal participation is a reflection of unequal access to public space, and vice versa. The city is leaning towards a global and hegemonic model of public space, where the routine enforcement of order is imperative through the use of appropriate planning policies. We question the degree of publicity of public spaces and the democratic management of urban territories. The "generic" city seeks to eliminate or hide anomic behavior. However, violence adapts to specific forms of urban territories, with the form of the city determining their substance. Consequently, violence should be interpreted as a reaction triggered by the way in which society is organized. Instead of reducing urban violence, the use of security planning in urban areas often territorializes it. A geography of violence reflects the geography of security. With the transition from governmentality to governance in the security field, society has also evolved from fragmentation to greater segregation of urban areas. Efforts must be made by public authorities to reconfigure their structures in order to respond, by themselves, to the public demand for security. To avoid the transition from conflict to violence, the anomie in the city must be reconsidered and urban risks resolved within a framework of inter-sectorality.

EPFL2009

Les étudiants, l'université de masse et la ville durable

Ismail Haddad

EPFL2009

Le temple d'Hathor à Dendara

Pierre Zignani

EPFL2004

Violences, sécurités et territoires

Charlotte Boisteau

EPFL2009