TRANSFORMATIONS booklet available in Open Access

At a time of climate emergency, shrinking available resources, and environmental crisis, awareness of the multiple consequences of decades of urban sprawl is leading to the promotion of territorial strategies aimed at preserving natural environments and arable land by prioritizing the inward shift of urbanization. This effort extends well beyond city centers to include vast and varied territories in suburban and peri-urban regions. The creation – or reinforcement – of neighborhoods with a density carefully adapted to the context, a fine mix of functions, and a low-carbon interconnection to the wider territory is a promising strategy to which the architectural project can make a decisive contribution.

These observations are at the heart of the work carried out by the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST), which systematically integrates a multidimensional perspective, a multi-scalar imbrication, an evaluative approach, and an openness to interdisciplinarity into its approach. Between the freedom offered by the academic framework and investigations rooted in concrete sites, the many works gathered here provide an architectural corpus that reveals the rich field of possibilities in the face of the complex nature of contemporary issues. Through multi-scalar approaches and interdisciplinary contributions, this collective effort becomes the source of broader questions related to the evolving role of the architect in the multiple territories in transition.

The TRANSFORMATIONS box set, which brings together the four books GREEN DENSITY, URBAN RECOVERY, SUBURBAN POLARITY and LIVING PERIPHERY, is accompanied by a richly illustrated booklet that includes an essay by Prof. Emmanuel Rey on the role of architectural design in the transition of urban territories, and various testimonials from people involved in the process. The latter is now available in Open Access ebook in French and English.