Lieu hologrammatique, un concept et une méthodologie complexe de mesure de l'organisation spatiale des réalités sociales

The urban is a complex phenomenon whose exploration remains a important scientific challenge. Choosing complex thought in order to renew our capacities for understanding and action on and with the urban is not trivial. The complex thought developed by Edgar Morin is as elegant as elusive. The social sciences of space developed by Jacques Lévy and Michel Lussault have contributed to the renewal of the space's place to understand the inhabited. The objective of this thesis is to articulate these two constructivist approaches, in order to achieve a higher level of synthesis regarding the understanding and measure of the social construction of inhabited space. The thesis consists in three parts :

the epistemological challenge : how to enagage with a complex problem ?
the theoretical challenge : how to appreciate the social construction of space in order to measure an urban substance ?
the methodological challenge : how to measure this substance ? Based on reflections concerning measuring urbanity, I propose a generalization to that of the spatialization of social realities. By translating the notions of metric, scale and place, the author's work leads to the proposal of an indisciplinary concept and methodology for measuring the spatialization of social realities: the hologrammatic place. The thesis defended is that such conceptualization allows us to identify boundaries of places by their emergence. Such an a posteriori identification allows the establishment not of an indicator, but of a measure of the spatialization of social realities. This research contribute to the renewal of urban planning methodologies toward the establishment of a complex methodology that makes conceivable a relative and relational urbanism.

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

Villes à la frontière et transformation de l'espace

Lena Poschet El Moudden

Few borders exist which separate two countries as dramatically disparate as the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Both share the territory of the Hispaniola island, but a profound process of differentiation rooted in the colonial division of the island between France and Spain and ideologically maintained by both modern nations, has lead to what Théodat (1998, 2003) calls the "twofold insularity" – each country behaves as if it were located on a separate island. In spite of all prejudices and ethnical, historical, linguistic, social, economic or religious differences, people living in the border regions established cross-border relations which, even if largely based on economic interests, are much more frequent and important to both nations than officially admitted (De Jesus Cerdano and Dilla, 2005; Sillé & Segura & Cabral, 2002). The local dynamic created by this exchange becomes palpable when one observes the busy binational market in the border towns of Ouanaminthe (Haiti) and Dajabón (Dominican Republic). Twice a week, people from nearly the whole northern part of both countries travel to these towns located on either side of the Masacre River, in order to buy and sell goods or to offer services in the market of Dajabón. The other days, tons of cargo transit to Haiti, to the extent that the once small borderland settlements have become an important junction in the economic subsystem of the northern part of the island. Moreover, the construction of a free zone in Ouanaminthe in 2002 –to produce textiles for the US-market– has connected the borderland towns to the international economy. This recent development is set within a context of progressive opening of borders (Martinez, 1994). It is the result of international policies that have been decided in the capitals, without consulting the concerned regions. In Ouanaminthe and Dajabón, local institutions are weak and receive no or little financial and administrative support from central administration. They do not have the means to cope with growing pressure on land and infrastructure, as the emergence of legal and illegal livelihood opportunities in the borderland has generated a threefold increase of the overall population in the past twenty years (Dajabón grew from 8'500 inhabitants in 1980 to 16'000 in 2002 and Ouanaminthe from 7'000 in 1981 to 39'000 in 2003). How did these recent economic, political and societal transformations shape the urban space of the two borderland towns? I addressed this issue by analyzing the motivation of stakeholders involved in the process of spatial transformation, and the impact of their actions. In my work I refer to the conceptual framework of urban intermediation (Bolay and Rabinovich, 2004), i.e. the spatial issues that each town has to address according to its internal characteristics, its function in national and international networks and its relation to the direct rural environment. In order to use this framework for the borderland issues, the conceptual part of this study proposes to develop the concept of "borderland intermediation". To the existing urban intermediation concept, it adds the influence of the characteristics of the border (based on policy and political aspects, economic issues, local identities, social networks, national defense issues and geographical insertion). By doing so, it relates the bi-national system of borderland towns to the intermediation concept. Data has been collected over three and a half years during several periods of fieldwork: observation and mapping of occupation and use of urban space, cartography, qualitative interviews with local stakeholders and residents, completed by other primary and secondary sources. This study shows that the recent transformations have accentuated the existing unbalanced relationship between the two towns. The powerlessness of the municipality of Ouanaminthe to meet population growth and to impose regulations or taxes related to the growing trade has enhanced its dependency to the Dominican town. For a growing number of Haitians, it is of existential importance to cross over to Dajabón in order to seek income, healthcare and education and this, in spite of latent racism and mistreatments. Founded on a strong sentiment of exploitation, Haitians often criticize the capitalist or even colonialist relationship imposed by their neighbors: not only the fact that the bi-national market takes place in Dajabón, but also that Dominican enterprises develop subsidiaries in Ouanaminthe, taking advantage of cheap labor and the absence of local production. On the contrary, the majority of Dajabón residents interviewed do not need to cross the river for their living. Most of them have never been to Ouanaminthe, but consider it insalubrious, out of control and dangerous. Both towns lack application of regulations in urban planning matters. Thus, spatial growth has entirely been ruled by landowner structure and land occupation practices. Around Dajabón, the adjacent land belongs mainly to two landowners, whose strategy –to enhance soil value through development of equipped middleclass neighborhoods– has restricted the urban sprawl. In Ouanaminthe land belongs to a multitude of small peasants. The selling and illegal occupation of rather small plots leads to sprawling urban growth, guided by rural pathways and leaving entire parts of neighborhoods inaccessible to motor vehicles. Population growth has also been absorbed by high densification of existing neighborhoods. No formal collaborations exist between the two municipalities. Informal ones do, through the implication of the two mayors, but overall, cross-border collaboration is left to NGOs and professional associations who militate for human rights, environmental issues and fair treatment inside the bi-national market. International development agencies present in the borderland initiate projects with bi-national concern, but these are disconnected from the local level and strongly influenced by the fact that these agencies relate directly to the central governments. We also observe a process of internal segregation in both towns, as commercial establishments progressively occupy parts of the town centers and the emergent middle class gathers in specific neighborhoods. Ouanaminthe and Dajabón are functionally interlinked and their transformation is undeniably governed by the progressive permeability of the border. Nevertheless, this border separates two completely different urban landscapes that are deeply marked by the internal characteristics of each town. Furthermore, the unequal and complex relationship of both populations creates the paradox that their spatial proximity accentuates the segregation in both towns, as it allows the citizens of both countries to stay in their environment and to commute –if necessary– even daily. This work shows that the application of the intermediation concept is relevant for the study of complex relationships that govern borderland space. The analysis based on this concept has enabled to study, on a local level, processes that are taking place on a global level. In so doing, it has allowed us to provide some answers to the central question: "How do local populations, national and international firms and governments react when a territorial economy, based on agriculture, is progressively linked to international networks? "

EPFL2006

Singularité des slums: Production de l'espace dans la ville indienne

Salomé Clémentine Houllier Binder

Contemporary urbanism, as a science and ideology, sometimes induces a violence of urbanization that is exercised through formal planning on informal settlements. The latter are marginalized through processes of (in)visibility that exclude them from the city development. In the face of this domination, informal settlements are resisting their programmed erasure through self-construction and assemblage practices. They continue to grow massively in cities around the world, to the point of becoming the most important form of urban housing of the 21st century. By analyzing Indian informal settlements, the slums, the thesis focuses on the production of urban space and its spatial contradictions resulting mainly from a dichotomous relationship between the formal and the informal, which most often stems from the city's decision-makers. In this way, it helps to understand how norms are constantly being reworked and creating their own transgressions. This phenomenon leads to the production of a heterogeneous and multiple city. While scientific literature on slums has long focused on describing a condition considered unacceptable by elites and governments, the research is based on a field of study that attempts to highlight the reality and practices of these marginalized neighborhoods. The slum is thus established as a heuristic object in order to operate an epistemological rupture between the slum as a deficient element of the city and the slum as a driving principle of urban planning. The aim is therefore to show how slum-dwellers are resisting and overcoming, both socially and spatially, the informal status assigned to them by the Indian government, reflecting a new type of hybrid urbanity. By combining a critical approach of power relationships between dominant and dominated with empirical research carried out in several slums in Chennai (Tamil Nadu), the thesis questions the production of space in slums in two ways: the complex reality of power relations between urban planning and urban dwellers that contribute to the formation and destruction of slums; and the spatial and social practices carried out by slum-dwellers. These two ways allows us to understand the slum, not as a failure of urban development, but as a singularity of the Indian city. This recognition leads to a new urban order that considers the spatial logic of its occupants as an "alternative modernity". It makes it possible to (re)theorize the Indian city as a result of urban struggles between dominant and dominated groups as well as hybridization processes between vernacular traditions and modern practices. Considered as a theoretical figure, the slum leads to an innovative interpretation of the urban problems that constitutes an alternative to universalizing urban theories but also, and especially, to the practices that result from them. It is thus possible to consider a dialogue between modern spatial production, local practices and self-construction in order to better understand the processes of space production in Global South cities. In this manner, the slum becomes a new Indian urban paradigm, but also an universal object of contemporary urbanization that planners and architects must take into account in order to propose a type of urban planning that aims at reducing the inadequacies between "conceived space" and "lived space".

EPFL2019