South | EPFL Graph Search

South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word south comes from Old English sūþ, from earlier Proto-Germanic *sunþaz ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word sun derived from. Some languages describe south in the same way, from the fact that it is the direction of the sun at noon (in the Northern Hemisphere), like Latin meridies 'noon, south' (from medius 'middle' + dies 'day', cf English meridional), while others describe south as the right-hand side of the rising sun, like Biblical Hebrew תֵּימָן teiman 'south' from יָמִין yamin 'right', Aramaic תַּימנַא taymna from יָמִין yamin 'right' and Syriac ܬܰܝܡܢܳܐ taymna from ܝܰܡܝܺܢܳܐ yamina (hence the name of Yemen, the land to the south/right of the Levant). South is sometimes abbreviated as S. Navigation By convention, the bottom or down-facing side of a map is south,

La mémoire collective et l'espace. Traces, récits et expériences autour d'un paysage urbain romain

Lucia Bordone

This PhD thesis explores the way multiple and tenuous links connect collective memory and space in the contemporary city. It does so through a field enquiry carried out in Rome, Italy. This palimpsest-city has a particular relationship to the past, which confers it an exceptional symbolic status in Western imaginary. However, the choice has been made to approach it from its margins and to interrogate a dissenting Roman memory: that of the working-class. The Roman industrialization project of the end of the 19th century â strongly contested and brutally interrupted â has deeply marked the landscape of Ostiense, situated south of the historic center, in which most of the empirical research was conducted. Through a multidimensional analysis of this territory, this study interrogates the meaning and forms taken by the working-class memory in a city mainly considered as a non-industrial city. In this perspective, the thesis proposes a reading of the territory from three complementary angles: the one of the historiographical controversies which developed around Ostienseâs trajectory; the one of the everyday life, as we have been able to observe it through the field enquiry; the one of the public policies which were implemented in the zone (urban planning and heritage conservation). The research shows that apprehending the working-class memory of Ostiense requires to revisit the categories elaborated with regard to emblematic industrialization cases in Italy, Europe or the United-States. Indeed, Ostiense has represented a sui generis industrial zone, be it from the point of view of the activities covered or in regards to the socio-professional categories and the class relationships implied. Based on this reframing process, the study highlight a plurality of signs â material traces and individual narratives â which testify of the existence of a memory linked to the industrial past. Simultaneously, it reveals two types of obstacles to the existence of a memory lived as collective. The first is temporal and relates to a series of ruptures and discontinuities which have characterized the zone and submitted the former production sites to a process of extended abandonment. The second is spatial and linked to the way in which the territory tends to inhibit social dynamics that are favorable to the sharing of individual memories and that because of the sensory characteristics inherited from its past. While recognizing the weight of these obstacles in the access to a satisfying memory experience for our interviewees, this study calls for their recognition as constitutive components of the industrial legacy.

EPFL2020

The question of housing at the center of urban health inequities

Jérôme Chenal, Akuto Akpedze Konou, Vitor Pessoa Colombo

If environmental factors are important determinants of health, then universal access to adequate housing is key to tackle urban health inequities. Yet, with over one billion urban dwellers having no other choice than living in so-called slums, the provision of sufficient housing units that are both adequate and affordable remains a global challenge. In fact, we argue that the inability to access adequate housing is at the root of inequitable urbanization processes, and constitutes a global health challenge for it is structurally linked to urban health inequities. Despite large public investments, numerous housing programs in the global South have failed to address local socio-spatial dynamics, often ignoring the flexible and incremental nature of the building typologies that shelter the majority of urban dwellers in these regions. Despite several radical housing experiences realized since the 1950’s that explored incremental housing typologies, public housing programs have mostly opted for schemes relying on subsidized credit to access housing as a finished product. Such schemes require constant revenue and savings capacity to ensure mortgage payment – two things that exclude, from the beginning, the urban poor. In order to tackle urban health inequities, housing and land-use policies must be socially inclusive. Based on recent experiences in different countries of the South, we argue that public housing schemes should offer more varied building typologies and tenure conditions. In addition, pro-poor land-use policies are key to ensure universal rights to the city and to health, by securing adequate locations to affordable housing and equalizing spatial development.

2021

Study of a photochemical episode over the Grenoble area using a mesoscale model and intensive measurements

Ioan Balin, Bertrand Calpini, Alain Clappier, Olivier Couach, Pablo Roberto Ristori, Valentin Simeonov, Hubert van den Bergh

The Grenoble metropolitan area located in the French Alps with more than 400 thousand inhabitants suffers from periods of high ozone (O3) concns. in summertime. Grenoble is moreover located in the Y shaped convergence of three deep valleys with surrounding mountains up to 3,000 m above sea level (asl) leading to a very complex wind pattern. During summer 1999, a major field campaign GRENOble PHOTochem. (GRENOPHOT) involving std. ground based stations, LIDAR, aircraft, DOAS, microwave windprofilers was carried out in order to obtain the measurements needed for model validation. The air quality model METeorol. PHOtochem. MODel (METPHOMOD) developed at the University of Bern and at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technol. at Lausanne, was used to investigate the dynamic characteristics of air pollution in the Grenoble area during GRENOPHOT. The lumped chem. mechanism Regional Atm. Chem. Mechanism (RACM) was used for the calcn. A one-way nesting technique was used in which the large grid is a squared 198 km one with a grid resoln. of 6 * 6 km and the small one is a rectangular 78 * 68 km with a grid resoln. of 2 * 2 km. There are 24 vertical levels up to 8,000 m asl. The meteorol. and chem. simulations were validated with ground and vertical profiles measurements performed during the Intensive Observation Period (IOP) July, 25-27, when the O3 concns. reached up to 95 ppb. Both the spatial as well as the temporal variabilities of the simulated O3 concns. correspond reasonably well to the measured values. They caught the O3 plume south of Grenoble. The model results indicate a lower Planet Boundary Layer (PBL) height than the LIDAR obsd. The PBL calcd. by the model is about 2,100 m, whereas the LIDAR indicates about 2,400 m. The results show that the PBL in mountain terrain is higher than those found over flat terrain. A specific vertical stratification of the atm. at day and night time is obsd. during typical photochem. episodes. Highest O3 values appear in the south at 25 km downwind the city center, and the results show that about 32 ppb of fresh O3 are generated in the Grenoble plume.