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- Category: Dissertation Defence
Jean Houssemand is defending his PhD thesis : Conceptualization and evaluation of a typology of vertical housing concept for sustainable urban planning
The defense will take place in Dijon at the University of Burgundia at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Salle des Thèses (6 Esplanade Erasme), on february 14th at 14pm.
This work was directed by Jean-Philippe Antoni, Professor at the University of Burgundy, laboratory ThéMA.
Defense jury
Denis Bocquet, Professor at the National School of Architecture of Strasbourg
Éric Charmes, Director of Research at the Laboratory for interdisciplinary research on cities, spaces and society (EVS RIVES), Graduate School of Civil, Environmental and Urban Engineering, Vaulx-en-Velin
Pierre Frankhauser, Emeritus Professor at the University of Franche-Comté
Hélène Haniotou, Professor at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Abstract
Context. The current urban development process is the result of a paradoxical situation. On the one end, families prefer individual housing, which finds the favourable conditions to its spreading in the more or less distant from towns outskirts, while wishing to benefit from services (proximity to amenities, public transport offers, etc.) which are rather the corelate of dense urban centralization. On the other hand, in order to fight against environmental, social and economic costs of urban sprawl, and also aim towards a more sustainable city, the urban renovation and compact city projects lead to some density levels that only collective housing enables to reach.
Problematic. So, the equation « control of the urban sprawl, satisfaction of the house request and sustainable city » seems to be unsolvable, especially due to the lack of a housing offer being able to combine the particularities of the detached house and the needs of urban density. Two relatively separate tandems « housing / territory and induced mobility » result from it : individual housing, which is dependent on cars, is mainly situated in peri-urban areas, whereas collective housing, which is not approved by most families, gather in the town centers with many alternatives to cars. In such a context, through the main concept of « vertical housing development », this doctoral research work arises the hypothesis that the enlargement of the prism of the mobilities and urban areas analysis should enable the emergency of new solutions, which will include the housing and territories specifications in a multidisciplinary and multiscale way.
Methodology. In order to confirm this hypothesis, the methodology hinges on two steps. First, a review of the architectural literature allowed to define the « vertical housing concept » as an innovative answer to the equation which is insolvable nowadays : indeed, the history of architecture informs us profusely on the opportunities of a vertical urbanism unexploited until now ; this enables the creation of hanging artificial grounds to build in floors detached houses. In second place, the state of the art allowed to identify the main determinants of housing attractiveness while confronting the two classical tandems (individual/collective) to the concept of « vertical housing development » and suggests a theoretical model adaptable to different cases. Validation. The model has been evaluated three times. Firstly, the information gathered during a photo-elicitation inquiry allow to validate the architectural choices a posteriori and make sure of their suitability in terms of residential preferences (social validation). Secondly, a legal evaluation shows that a development of the current regulatory measures is indeed partially necessary to the operational development of the model, but the latter can nevertheless quickly fulfill the demand while fighting against urban sprawl. Thirdly, a geographical evaluation which compares the deployment of the model with the reality of available grounds and the localization of amenities and transport infrastructure, shows that it would concretely allow to densify the town and its outskirts according to a logic close to the Transit Oriented Development (TOD). Results. Three major results arise from this evaluation. Indeed, the « vertical housing development » concept seems (i) to match with the residential choices from a significant part of the French families, (ii) to be immediately authorized and managed by the current legal and regulatory framework, (iii) to benefit from a consequent potential of development at the level of the Strasbourg-Eurometropolis which serves as an example to this thesis. Moreover, at a time when multidisciplinary and multiscale approaches are questioned, this thesis work, which links an architectural approach at the housing level and a geographical approach at the city level, gives a specific example of new types of housing formalization, based on the original principle of a decoupling between « housing types » and « territories ».
Keywords : Housing types, Housing concept, Urban form, Urban renewal, Compact city, Sustainable city, Evaluation, Modelization, Multidisciplinarity, Multiscalarity
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- Category: Dissertation Defence
Seydou Ba is defending his PhD thesis : The issue of viability and socio-economic development in institutional territories facing administrative divisions in Senegal
The defense will take place in Besançon at the Salon Preclin, UFR SLHS on decembre 16th at 10am.
This work was directed by Alexandre Moine, Professor at the University of Franche-Comté, laboratory ThéMA.
Defense jury
Frédéric Giraut, Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland
Jean-Christophe Gay, Professor at the University of Sophia-Antipolis, Nice, France
Stéphanie Lima, Lecturer at the INU Champollion, Albi, France
Abdourahmane Sene, Lecturer at the University of Assane Seck de Ziguinchor and Director of spatial planning of the Ministery of « Gouvernance territoriale, du Développement et de l’Aménagement du Territoire », Senegal
Christian Guinchard, Lecturer – HDR at the University of Franche-Comté, France
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the process of construction and delimitation of communal territories in Senegal. Indeed, in Senegal, the communes constitute the basic territorial collectivities. They have legal personality and financial autonomy. They are created by decree, which must be concretely translated into a territorial division.
During the first years of 2000, the steady pace of administrative divisions led to a rapid change in the territorial organization and in parallel to the number of territorialized actors. This dynamic of recomposition then provoked a lively debate on the underpinnings of the divisions and the relevance of the territorial entities. This situation is all the more worrying as a number of conflicts between local and regional authorities have become widespread.
However, the creation of new territories in Senegal is very rarely accompanied by a materialization of their spatial limits. This phenomenon creates a great deal of uncertainty around the boundary and causes various conflicts that hinder the management and development of communities whose physical territory remains more or less poorly known.
It is in this context that we are interested in the process of administrative divisions to understand how territorial boundaries are defined and set up? What roles do they play in the management, ownership, cohesion and development of the territories they contribute to create and of which they constitute a determining component? What is the real existence of these territories? What do they represent for the actors? It is to these concerns that this thesis has tried to answer, through the example of 5 communes in the Saint-Louis region.
This research was conducted on the basis of a systemic approach, the conduct of semi-structured interviews and the use of mind maps. The goal is to analyze and understand the complex process of building boundaries and territories.
For data processing and analysis, we used a method of empirical analysis of content in order to understand the different spatial reference scales of the actors; the process of creating municipalities; the actors involved and their roles; finally, their level of appropriation of the communal territories.
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- Category: Publication and Output
An interdisciplinary research work between urban planning and language sciences now published in the journal Urban Studies
Thomas Buhler, laboratory ThéMA and Virgnie Lethier, ELLIADD (University of Franche-Comté) present a new method which opens up research perspectives for the coming years.
For several decades now, French cities - like many others around the world - regularly publish urban planning documents in which their strategies are expressed for the next 5, 10 or even 15 years. These documents concern particular themes (transport, land use regulations, housing, etc.). Begun two years ago, an interdisciplinary project between research centres ThéMA and ELLIADD focuses on the analysis of the these 'planning discourses', based on textometry, a reproducible method of textual data analysis. This systematic method aims to overcome certain methodological and technical obstacles present in the field of urban policy discourse analysis, which is often based on interpretative methods that are weakly reproducible or documented.
Buhler, T., & Lethier, V. (2019). Analysing urban policy discourses using textometry: An application to French urban transport plans (2000–2015). Urban Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098019873824
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Maxime Colomb is defending his PhD thesis entitled "Multi-scale simulation of realistic forms of residential development from the parcel to the metropolitan area".
The defense will take place at the Université Paris Est, in the IGN (Institut Géographique National), 73 avenue de Paris, Saint Mandé on September 27th, 2019.
This work was directed by Julien Perret, Senior researcher, IGN (French national Geographic Institute) and Cécile Tannier, Senior researcher at CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), Laboratoire ThéMA and co-directed by Mickaël Brasebin, Research Officer, IGN.
Defense jury
Cyrille Genre-Grandpierre, Professor at the University of Avignon, France
Jacques Teller, Professor at the University of Liège, Belgium
Hélène Houot, Lecturer at the University of Franche-Comté, France
Florent Le Néchet, Lecture at the University Paris-Est, France
Abstract
The process of urban sprawl of urban agglomerations is very often criticised for numerous reasons. The dynamics of residential developments, at the origin of urban sprawl, are very complex and result from the interaction of several phenomena. Many laws and regulations are supposed to control the construction of buildings in order to limit the negative impacts of urbanisation. It is nevertheless difficult to anticipate the effects of such a regulatory corpus. Its multi-scale nature, related to the different levels of regulation, the different regulated subjects and the different parties executing those regulations complicate the forecasting of their effects and the spatial configurations they contribute to create.
Here, we propose a simulation model for the residential development of an urban agglomeration. It produces realistic configurations respecting the orientations, goals and constraints stemming from urban planning documents. To that end, we elaborate a coupling of two existing spatial simulation models. This coupling, named ArtiScales, follows a top-down approach in simulating the shape of the residential development of an entire study area by selecting the constructible parcels and by simulating the construction potential of each plot. ArtiScales integrates the MUP-City model, that allows us to select interesting locations with respect to the built configuration of the study area and to several points of interest (transportation networks, shopping facilities, services, etc.). We develop a parcel management model in order to select the existing parcels interesting for residential development and to recompose them when needed according to the chosen scenarios and to specific situations (densification, special operations). Finally, we use the SimPLU3D model to simulate the constructibility of each parcel. This model generates spatial configurations, in three dimensions, respecting the regulatory constraints originating from the local urban planning scheme (Plan Local de l’Urbanisme - PLU). We concentrate the analysis of the coupling results on the estimation of created housing units and its agreement with the goals defined by the local housing program (Programme Local de l’Habitat - PLH) and on the housing density by hectare and its agreement with the goals defined by the territorial coherence scheme (Schéma de Cohérence Territoriale - SCoT).
Spatial simulation models are subject to an important variability that questions the reliability of simulation results. MUP-City being particularly subject to such variability, we conduct a complete analysis of its simulation results in order to caracterise the parameters responsible for this variability and how it translates to the produced spatial configurations. We distinguish two types of variations : the ones caused by scenaristic parameters, allowing to simulate different residential development forms, and those caused by technical parameters (internal to the model), allowing to propose variants of the scenarios. The variability between the variants is compared with the variability found in the study of MUP-City results in order to see if the model coupling absorbs or amplifies it.
The ArtiScales model (https://github.com/ArtiScales/ArtiScales) is available as free and open source software and can be used in many applications. A set of simulations representing different scenarios has been explored on the Grand Besançon territory (East of France). Simulations carried out represent a potential for residential development conforming to all the regulations at work. We also propose simulations that modify the zoning authorising the construction or not.
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- Category: Dissertation Defence
Badra Merrad Benyamina is defending her PhD thesis "Space Movements and Mutations in Algiers" in Dijon
The defense will take place at the MSH of Dijon on July 1st at 14h30.
This work was directed by André Larceneux, Emeritus Professor at the University of Borgogne and co-directed by Tahar Baouni, Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme (EPAU-Alger), laboratoire VUDD
Defense jury
Corinne Blanquart, Director of Research at IFSTTAR,Planning, Mobilities and Environment Department
Marie-Hélene Massot, Professor at the University Paris-EST Créteil, LAB’Urba
Thomas Thevenin, Professor at the University of Bourgogne, Laboratoire ThéMA
Abstract
Algiers port and city’s exceptional history is driven by its remarkable site nestled on a rocky spur. Yet this morphology constrained the urban growth of a city that could pretend joigning the ranks of large metropolis .During its history port and city relationship took multiple forms, frequently compatible yet sometimes divergent and even opposed, leading to inversing domination status of both actors. Algiers capital of a 40 million inhabitants state, has always been a laboratory of urban politics since the colonial era to the institutional constructions of independent Algeria, regardless of deficient statistical tools. However, the space in Algiers is confronted to great challenges due to an anarchic growth of its population, fragmented urban spaces and unbearable motion constraints. If road and collective transportation infrastructures are growingly programed and achieved by successive plans, their articulation with built-up areas and housing developments with the aim of eradicating slums does not seem to be really coherent. Furthermore, the location of communal amenities which seem to be relating to real estate opportunities, adds to the complexity of the urban fabric. However, under this apparent complexity, arise deep urban logics that should be highlighted and modeled.
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- Category: Dissertation Defence
Valentine Judge is defending her PhD thesis "Machine Learning for Land Use Change Analysis and Modelling. An exploration of urban development on the French-German border area"
The defense will take place in Besançon at the Salon Preclin, UFR SLHS on July 16th at 3pm.
This work was directed by Jean-Philippe Antoni, Professor at the University of Borgogne, laboratory ThéMA and co-directed by Olivier Klein, Associate researcher at the LISER Institute, Luxembourg.
Defense jury
Francisco Escobar, Professor at the University of Alcala, Spain
Giovanni Fusco, Associate researcher "HDR" at CNRS, France
Guy Engelen, Emeritus researcher VITO Institute, Belgium
Bernhard Köppen, Professor at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
Abstract
Urban development can take different forms or features, depending on its geographical location and its socioeconomic, political and cultural context. Nevertheless, the overall action relies on one fundamental principle: building construction in order to give people housing. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to determine whether an underlying universal aspect of the urban development process can be distinguished from a specific one, being the reflect of local specificities. Specifically, this research analyzes the land use change on the French-German cross-border area. Indeed, the border context enhances the difference within this territory. Nonetheless, the internal European border importance as a separation is getting lower while European Union agreement and cooperation are getting stronger. Consequently, we tend to question a potential homogeneity of such area according the urban development analysis. To gain a better understanding of the urban development in the French-German cross-border area, a specific method using a decision tree (DT) process to generate and calibrate urban transition rules for cellular automata (CA) has been developed. In order to define CA rules, the learning algorithm is provided with data of land use, from 1990 and 2006, accessibility to the main urban area and country location. The findings demonstrate that the rule set identified rules, which are constrained at different levels: from the initial land use state needed for urbanization to the geographical location in a specific country. The analysis therefore shows rules specific to France or Germany, as well as rules free from any state location constraints, which characterize a cross-border urbanization process. The latter is more influenced by the location toward main urban areas. Proper neighborhood and internal characteristic of urbanized cells depending of the nature of the rule (French, German or Cross-border) are explicitly defined. In conclusion, this research contribution can be summarized according to the following three orientations: (1) from a theoretical point of view, which propose to identify urban processes degree of universality, (2) from a thematic outlook, describing the influence of the urban development process location on the border area, (3) from a methodological point of view, pairing DT and AC to automatically design and calibrate the urban development model used in this research work.
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- Category: Dissertation Defence
Olivier Bonin, researcher IFSTTAR at LVMT (Laboratoire Ville-Mobilité-Transport, Champs-sur-Marne), is defending his Accreditation to supervise research at the laboratory ThéMA.
The defense will take place on may the 27th at 2 pm, at the " Grand Salon" (18, rue Chifflet, UFR SLHS).
Geography has since antiquity used cartography to describe the shape of the Earth and its population. Indeed, cartography is an analogical model of the world particularly suited to the description of shapes, spatial arrangements and spatial relationships, i.e. information of a qualitative nature, the meaning of which emerges when reading maps. The theoretical and quantitative turn in geography has seen the development of many formal and numerical modelling approaches in which, paradoxically, it is more difficult to integrate the question of the meaning of space in human activities. In this work, I propose a formal modelling framework aimed at clarifying the meaning of space. Through a phenomenological approach, I identify the different forms of perception of individuals and human communities, in order to propose general principles that are then mathematized by techniques from the sciences of complexity. Three models related to urban morphogenesis illustrate different facets of this general modelling framework aimed at giving meaning to space.
Defense jury
Alessandro Sarti, Director of Research at EHESS and joint to Collège de France
Gabriel Dupuy, Emeritus Professor at the University Paris I -
Jean-Philippe Antoni, Professor at the University of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté – TheMA
Geoffrey Caruso, Professor at the University of Luxembourg
Cyrille Bertelle, Professor at the University Le Havre – LITIS
Pierre Frankhauser, Emeritus Professor at the University of Franche Comté - ThéMA
Personal homepage : http://www.lvmt.fr/equipe/olivier-bonin/
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- Category: Publication and Output
An article published in Nature Scientific Reports: Huge decrease of frost frequency in the Mont-Blanc Massif under climate change
Benjamin Pohl, Daniel Joly, Julien Pergaud, Jean-François Buonchristiani, Paul Soare & Alexandre Berger, Nature Scientific reports volume 9, Article number : 4919 (2019)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41398-5#Abs1
This study co-signed by 5 members of the laboratory Biogéosciences (Dijon) was led in the framework of the ANR project « VIP-Mont-Blanc » about the consequences of climate change in the Mont Blanc massif. It is based on 13 models of simulated temperatures used to define the IPCC’s climate scenarios. These data have a coarse spatial resolution, i.e. grid cells of a 100 to 200 km, but have a very high temporal resolution: a daily value of minimum and maximum temperature from 1850 to 2100, amounting to 55 000 days! The algorithm developed by the Bourgogne Franche-Comté team aims at reducing this data’s spatial inaccuracy by “downscaling”. Eventually, the coupling of physical and geographical models provided very high spatio-temporal resolution climate data. At a 200 m resolution over the entire Mont Blanc massif and for 55 000 days, each of the 13 simulations were downscaled according to two scenarios, optimistic vs pessimistic.
Until the middle of the 20th century, the study shows few differences between scenarios but in the second half, strong evolutions arise. Under the pessimistic scenario, every third day will be frostless on the Mont Blanc summit in summer, with a risk of rock wall destabilization and collapse all over the range. Things will be not better in winter with very little snow in the valley.
Mont Blanc massif from the Brévent ; Credit photo : Jean-Christophe Foltête
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PixScape software, devoted to the modelling of landscape visibility, is published in the journal “Transactions in GIS”
PixScape software proposes to integrate a large set of functions for modeling landscape visibility while remaining interfaced with GIS software. This software can be used to perform a complete landscape assessment by computing a wide range of original landscape metrics. It performs tangential analysis in addition to viewshed analysis, which can produce more realistic outcomes. Because landscape visibility analysis over large areas implies significant computation time, the software also integrates a multi‐resolution process intended to speed up calculations while also taking into account the cognitive abilities of human vision.
DOI : 10.1111/tgis.12457
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- Category: Dissertation Defence
The defense will take place at the "Maison des Sciences de l'Homme et de l'Environnement Claude Nicolas Ledoux", salle 4 (1 rue Charles Nodier). This work was directed by Pierre Frankhauser.
Defense jury
Pierre Frankhauser, Professor at the University of Franche-Comté
Gabriel Dupuy, Emeritus Professor at the University Paris I
Geoffrey Caruso, Professor at the University of Luxembourg
Dominique Mignot, Scientific Director of IFSTTAR
Dominique Peeters, Emeritus Professor at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Igor Agbossou, Lecturer at the University of Franche-Comté
Abstract
This thesis is based on the challenges of assessing the impacts of urban planning decisions in the light of the imperatives of sustainable development. Beyond the vagueness often emerges from this concept, it is here to conduct a reflection on a balance to be found between the three pillars identified about sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. The aim is to consider how to assess the impacts of development policies in each of these three pillars and what conclusions should be drawn from them? The aim here is to provide answers by assessing the performance of the territories studied in these three pillars of sustainable development. For this purpose, the work is based on simulation models (here the MobiSim model developed within Laboratoire ThéMA) and on the production of synthetic indicators allowing a readable analysis and evaluation of the space. The combination of these synthetic indicators makes it possible to visualize and analyze the sustainability of the territory studied and to deduce the measures to be implemented with a view to ensuring a sustainable development policy. It is a question of putting the methodology and the results obtained into perspective in a global vision, seeking to establish by the balance between the three pillars a harmony which allows to satisfy the objectives of a policy guided by the imperatives linked to the concept of inherited from the Bruntland report. A critical approach to this concept and an analysis of the sets of actors of a territory are here conduits in order to be able to implement the scientific research work within a decision-making process. The challenge is to allow the results of research based on power modeling tools to find a more concrete and operational problem.