Video for the WISH Foundation
The Rhône © EPFL / WISH
Presented during the Erna Hamburger 2022 award ceremony on November 7 at the Rolex Learning Center, a video produced by the WISH Foundation (Women in science and humanities) features people from various backgrounds committed to the transition. On this occasion, Sara Formery, a doctoral assistant at the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST), presented her work under development within the RHODANIE URBAINE research project framework. Her comments focus, in particular, on the issues specific to rhodanian neighborhoods in transition.
In the context of the fight against the devastating effect of urban sprawl, a convergence appears between the densification objectives within the built environment and risk management for flood-prone areas. It opens an era of reconciliation between the river and the urban areas it passes through. Undervalued sites to date have proved particularly suitable for the creation of new sustainable neighborhoods, especially when they are connected to public transport networks and have significant potential in terms of urban regeneration. As a river dealing with significant changes linked to the management of its floods, the Rhône is a case in point of the multiple issues inherent in these processes of change.
In this video directed by Anna Morales Melgares, Sara Formery presents the concept of a new city-river balance understood as resilient urban attitudes in an ecological transition framework. To confront the diversity of situations, the approach is to develop project-based visions on four study sites in the regeneration process, showing the potential of urban evolution, and evaluate them according to a multi-criteria analysis grid. Finally, she concludes on the opportunity offered by the architectural project as a means of action for the transition towards sustainability of the built environment at the scale of the neighborhood, the building, and the construction component.