2014 Sustainability in heritage protected areas

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Sustainability in heritage protected areas : Proceedings of the 5th AESOP European Urban Summer School Tours, France, from 1st – 8thSeptember 2014
(AESOP, 2014) Verdelli, Laura
The present book contains the proceedings of the fifth EUSS which took place in Tours, France, from 1st – 8thSeptember 2014, organised by the École Polytechnique de l’Université de Tours, Département Aménagement et Environnement (EPU-DAE). The theme.is ‘Heritage conservation and sustainable urban development’. It is the third and last of those including the papers of YPPA winners and sponsored by mI&M. The YPPA papers are those from the three winners: Fernando Navarro Carmona - elCASC - from Spain, Cexiang Foo from Singapore and Nasos Alexis from Crete, Greece, and from the runner-up Anna Peralta Zaragoza, also from Spain.Responsible for the 5th EUSS and for editing this publication is Laura Verdelli. The partner organisations are indebted to her for her huge efforts to make both the Summer School and this book a success. Tours has proved itself a worthy case study for examining the theme of heritage and sustainability as this book shows. We hope you enjoy and get some new ideas from reading its content. The 5th EUSS / 3rd YPPA have once again confirmed that a few days of intensive interaction, hard work and fun can produce many useful new ideas from, and friendships amongst, young planning professionals and tutors from diverse countries who participated and have contributed to this book. EUSS will continue. All partners are very grateful for the support of the Dutch ministry the past three years, achieved by integrating the YPPA into its proceedings. The books represent a tangible and lasting reflection of the information and knowledge generated. Without them, a lot of that knowledge could easily just fade into the past with a minimum of impact. It is our hope that we will be able to continue with the series of publications from the following Summer Schools.
Open Access
The European Urban Summer School (EUSS) and the Young Planning Professionals Award (YPPA)
(AESOP, 2014) Mironowicz, Izabela; Martin, Derek
In 2010, the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) launched a new annual event: the European Urban Summer School (EUSS) for young planning practitioners and academics across Europe to promote an exchange of ideas and foster a debate on important contemporary planning issues amongst representatives of the new generation of planning professionals. Members of AESOP – European universities teaching planning – host the event and offer their teaching resources at the Summer Schools. Tutors do not get any fee for their work; the EUSS is not a commercial venture. It is meant as a platform of debate to be run on as low as possible fee for participants. On average some 20-30 young professionals attend the School. The first EUSS was held in September 2010 at the Wrocław University of Technology, Poland. The topic was Heritage and Sustainability. Izabela Mironowicz was head of school. The proceedings of EUSS 2010 have been published in “Urban Change. The Prospect of Transformation” edited by Izabela Mironowicz and Judth Ryser (ISBN978-83-7493-570-8) and sponsored by UN-Habitat. The book is also available for downloading in pdf format from the AESOP website www.aesop-planning.eu and is ready for comments on the AESOP Digital Platform ‘InPlanning’. For the second EUSS, hosted by Lusófona University in Lisbon, Portugal in September 2011, AESOP invited four of its international planning partner organisations to be involved in the Summer School: the European Council of Spatial Planners-Conseil Européen des Urbanistes (ECTP-CEU), the European Urban Research Association (EURA), the International Federation for Housing and Planning (IFHP) and the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP). Diogo Mateus was head of school and the topic was: Quality of Space – Quality of Life. Unfortunately a sponsor has not been found to enable a book of the proceedings to be published.
Open Access
The Spatial Planning and Environment Department of Polytech Tours
(AESOP, 2014) Hamdouch, Abdelillah
France, the design and planning of inhabited spaces is covered by four professional disciplines which match with four educational establishments: ––Urbanism, urban and regional planning in Schools of Engineering and University departments ––Civil engineering, urban engineering in Schools of Engineering –– Architecture, Landscape in Schools of Architecture and Landscape –– Economics and social studies in Faculties Embracing those four disciplines plus Environment Studies, the programme offered in the Planning and Environment Department at the Polytechnic School of the University of Tours (EPU-DAE) is unique in France. It is the sole Engineering degree in Territorial Planning accredited by the Engineering Title Committee (CTI), and has been reassessed recently and accredited by the CTI for the next 6 years (Sept 2014 - Sept 2020). The EPU-DAE is also a recognised by the French speaking association of Schools in Urban and Regional Planning (APERAU), and is actually one of the founding members of both APERAU and AESOP. The EPU-DAE programme aims to help students acquire technical and practical knowledge and competences for addressing contemporary planning challenges faced by cities and urban regions in the context of climate change and the need for designing and implementing workable models and approaches toward more sustainable urban and regional development dynamics.
Open Access
Notes on the 5th EUSS and the proceedings : Preface
(AESOP, 2014) Verdelli, Laura
As time seems to fly faster every day, human beings feel the necessity to preserve, develop and even showcase cultural heritage so as to conserve points of reference of our identities and evidence of our individualities. At the same time, this fast developing - and decaying - world imposes another necessity: to develop and preserve our social, economic and ecological environment, to achieve what is commonly called ‘sustainable development’. This means that in all our historic cities, heritage concerns and sustainable development are two essentials to take into account whilst conceiving any spatial development project, but they are not always obviously compatible. The essential and challenging difficulty to conciliate the two was the basic concept of the 5th European Urban Summer School (EUSS). This edition of the EUSS aimed to set a platform to discuss issues where heritage conservation and sustainable development can meet. Has heritage conservation to be strictly framed? Do we have to choose between places to admire and places to experience? What does the application of sustainable development pillars imply in spatial planning and especially in urban design? The EUSS, with a series of seminars and workshops, aimed to bring together young planners and academics so as to benefit from international creativity. The goal was to create a platform where each participant could experience combining theoretical approaches and operational urban design. At the basis of the EUSS programme was the intention of showing participants as many sides of a complex stakeholders’ environment as possible. That’s why the many lecturers invited to speak were firstly specialists of heritage conservation (so as to structure the framework, a-spatially) and secondly from all possible categories of users and decision-makers (specifically related to the project site): politicians, technicians, professionals, architects/planners, associations, shopkeepers, inhabitants, individuals etc.
Open Access
What is heritage? The dilemmas of an urban planner
(AESOP, 2014) Mironowicz, Izabela
Three words: concentration, diversity, centrality are commonly accepted key words defining the city. All the definitions widely discussed in literature elaborate and interpret these three simple words either in the context of physical territory or of social relations and activities. There is, however, one more characteristic of the city significantly present in the definitions, studies and (the most important!) reality, in every day urban life. This is change, transformation, flux. Beaujeu-Garnier and Chabot (1971) note precisely that: „the city is in constant adaptation to the civilizational model; it is in fact a physical expression of this model”. There is therefore no one universal model of the city, there is no one omnipresent urban form. There is a variety of models and forms produced by the different civilizational formations. Metamorphosis of the city can be seen as a process inherently embedded in its very nature. It is evident that constant social transformation has to influence the structure of the city inhabited by this changing society. An important (but not always recognised) fact is that, at least in the long run, nobody can control social evolution. This is why identification and understanding of these powerful developments is so important for urban planners. Technical opportunities are probably amongst the most significant factors determining social change. Both social and technical change are impossible to foresee. Both are impossible to control, regulate or dictate in long periods of time. Both are dynamic. Together they form the foundations of the „civilizational model” described by Beaujeu- Garnier and Chabot.
Open Access
Culture de l’eau et projet de paysage: annotations pour une réflexion (Water Culture and Landscape Project: reflective notes)
(AESOP, 2014) Ercolini, Michele
The map of historical human settlements, with a few exceptions, corresponds to the one of the rivers and waterfronts of the world. At the origin of everything, always, and despite everything is: water. Rivers have shaped the landscape over the centuries. They have signified important means of communication and, at the same time, constraints. Natural fords have determined the direction of roads. Writers, painters and poets that have described and enjoyed the rivers, led them to be loved by revealing what can be seen of their forms. One of the cornerstones of the European Declaration for a ‘New Water Culture’, introduced and signed in Madrid in February 2005, refers to the ‘cultural values’ of water territories. Rivers are presented as a natural heritage that hosts territorial and collective identity values; they are referred to as the soul of many landscapes and of many human communities that lived near their banks for hundreds or thousands of years. The ecological and landscape functions generated by the rivers, as well as the cultural, social and functional values should be recognized and cherished. Renzo Franzin alerts us on the fact that: “We can identify today, particularly in the most water-rich countries, a gradual disappearance of the Culture of water, although it had produced along the centuries a knowledge rich in signs and crafts, all aware of the amazing and valuable aspect of this resource, that was run as a heritage to safeguard and develop in a wise utilitarian vision, limiting wastes and risks”
Open Access
Integrative Urban Design Game: a method for sustainable regeneration of built cultural heritage
(AESOP, 2014) Mrđenović, Tatjana
Urban regeneration is challenged by the contradictory impact of globalization. This double- sided process can enrich local communities or leave them at the margins of global society. In the wake of globalization, most authorities claim that urban planning and design are in a paradigm crisis. This crisis is a forewarning for the need for a paradigm shift in contemporary theoretical and conceptual frameworks, the common elements of which are: ‘soft and hard infrastructure’, ‘agencies and structures’, ‘power to’, ‘new rationality’, ‘common sense’, ‘communicative action’ and ‘integrative development’. This research will examine the extended role of urban design to also become an integrating instrument in urban regeneration processes and provide a holistic development of the areas involved. Understood as a process of space creation, urban design with its different process dimensions, from subjective-expressive, multidisciplinary to socio-collaborative, can offer creative solutions in the regeneration process and globalization challenges using innovative methods like Integrative urban design.
Open Access
Development planning and evaluation: stakeholders, vision, actions
(AESOP, 2014) Đokić, Irena
Since his existence, man has made plans1. In the very beginning, planning was about solving existential issues – the need for food and a place to shelter. Ancient nations (Greek, Romans and others) planned towns in the widest sense of the word, the management of space, land, ownership and providing services to citizens2. They planned places in which they lived, streets as corridors of movement, squares as festive places/ places of celebrations, pyramids in which people were buried. They also cared about the living space (habitat), art-cultural and sport facilities and economic activities, aiming at managing all aspects of people’s life (Đokić et al., 2010). Therefore some notion of planning is known to any reader even with only a basic idea of what it encompasses; today it is almost impossible to live without a prepared or at least roughly sketched plan. Everyday life is characterised by planning. We plan how much time we want to spend sleeping, which food we will eat, how we are going to spend our leisure time, whether we have sufficient sources to ensure basic living needs, etc. It is therefore not surprising that planning is the basis for the efficient management of much more complex systems such as schools, hospitals, firms, towns, ministries, and finally states.
Open Access
The R+0! approach: between theory and practice
(AESOP, 2014) Carabelli, Romeo
Urban development is always related to social transformation. This can be seen in several examples through history, from the French “luxury polemic” of the 18th century, discussing where new real estate should be developed, through the Grossstadt discussion at the beginning of the 20th century about the relevance of the masses, up to the 1968 social protests, when the theory of Lefebvre about the “right to the city”, gave a new interest to the quality of everyday life (Secchi 2013:7). In the last of these, there is an implicit new role for ‘the ordinary citizen’, who became an important stakeholder in the development and regeneration of urban regions. During the seventies several attempts to strengthen the role of citizens in urban planning and design developments were attempted, notably the ones by Yona Friedman and Giancarlo de Carlo, but they did not reach a wide audience, and tended to be only limited, single experiences (Cimadomo, 2014a). They did, however, show the necessity to get the citizen’s opinion and get to know their needs, as a relevant social act in any design and urban transformation intervention, considering not the administration, but the citizens themselves as the real clients. The weight of the real estate and subprime lending components in the financial crisis at the beginning of this century had, and still has, a great impact on the lives of millions of people. In particular, cuts in welfare benefits have generated protests everywhere, giving a renewed importance to the role of citizens in policy-making. The 15M movement in Spain, or Occupy Wall Street in the United States, just to mention two, constitute a profound transformation and a point of no return in the way public policies are administered. Such movements have also had an effect on urban transformation, leading to a more bottom-up approach to, and the participation of, ordinary citizens in the planning process.
Open Access
Community participation for heritage conservation
(AESOP, 2014) Cimadomo, Guido
Urban development is always related to social transformation. This can be seen in several examples through history, from the French “luxury polemic” of the 18th century, discussing where new real estate should be developed, through the Grossstadt discussion at the beginning of the 20th century about the relevance of the masses, up to the 1968 social protests, when the theory of Lefebvre about the “right to the city”, gave a new interest to the quality of everyday life (Secchi 2013:7). In the last of these, there is an implicit new role for ‘the ordinary citizen’, who became an important stakeholder in the development and regeneration of urban regions. During the seventies several attempts to strengthen the role of citizens in urban planning and design developments were attempted, notably the ones by Yona Friedman and Giancarlo de Carlo, but they did not reach a wide audience, and tended to be only limited, single experiences (Cimadomo, 2014a). They did, however, show the necessity to get the citizen’s opinion and get to know their needs, as a relevant social act in any design and urban transformation intervention, considering not the administration, but the citizens themselves as the real clients. The weight of the real estate and subprime lending components in the financial crisis at the beginning of this century had, and still has, a great impact on the lives of millions of people. In particular, cuts in welfare benefits have generated protests everywhere, giving a renewed importance to the role of citizens in policy-making. The 15M movement in Spain, or Occupy Wall Street in the United States, just to mention two, constitute a profound transformation and a point of no return in the way public policies are administered. Such movements have also had an effect on urban transformation, leading to a more bottom-up approach to, and the participation of, ordinary citizens in the planning process.
Open Access
Patrimoine, développement durable et habitat au sein des secteurs sauvegardés (Heritage, Sustainable Development and Social Diversity: what is the place of housing and the inhabitant in urban preservation areas in France?)
(AESOP, 2014) Armellini, David
This paper looks at the relationship between heritage protection and housing and social diversity in so-called Preservation Areas (‘les secteurs sauvegardes’) in historic centres in French cities. An important turning point in heritage protection in France was the ‘Malraux Act’ of 1962, establishing preservation areas in the historic centres in 104 cities and towns of different sizes, one of which, of course, is Tours. This Act and subsequent laws and decrees have had a major positive impact with regard to its main objective. It was essentially a planning law aimed at preserving historic city centres with the use of use of planning tools, such as the Plan Local d’Urbanisme (PLU), and financial incentives such as tax exemption and state and local subsidies. The result was that these areas improved radically from the general post-war image of unhealthy, shabby areas to architecturally and aesthetically pleasant and economically buoyant areas, with white-collar, middle-income professional classes well represented and successful cultural and commercial activities, especially from tourism: gentrification and ‘touristification’ with a good social diversity. However, gradually in the course of time, the stringent regulations for the physical preservation of these areas, often rather uncoordinated from different ministries and regional and local authorities, because of their complexity and expense, began to have more negative impacts.
Open Access
Residential Stock Reconfiguration at Neighbourhood Level: from building retrofitting to sustainable development
(AESOP, 2014) Falaki, Farinaz
gases, including carbon dioxide, have already consigned the planet to an increase in average temperature of the Earth in recent years that may exceed the critical threshold of numerous unmanageable and irreversible consequences, such as abrupt change in the climate system (Espinosa, 2006). The effect of natural variability and, more importantly, human activities on global warming of our planet is the subject of a huge number of recent studies in the course of the past twenty years (Dietz et al., 1997), (Ramanathan et al., 2001), (Karl et al., 2003) & (McMichael et al., 2006). This has created a worldwide debate on this subject which is emphasizing the need for long-term reductions of CO2 emissions by various methods, especially through increased energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, and many other lowcarbon strategies. Moreover, among the entire man-made factors resulting in CO2 emissions, infrastructures and specifically building stocks are considered to be one of the most effective of all (According to USGBC and Architecture2030 in the United States). On the other hand, the physical infrastructure in our neighbourhoods requires continual maintenance, repair, and significant upgrading to avoid falling into disrepair which causes economic, environmental and social costs. In doing so, in an integrated approach, we have the opportunity to address climate change adaptation, deliver reliable and efficient transport networks, improve health and well-being, secure a healthy natural environment, improve long-term housing supply, maximize employment opportunities and make our communities safer, more cohesive and more sustainable.
Open Access
Urban and socio-cultural renewal planning performance
(AESOP, 2014) Navarro Carmona, Fernando; Muñoz Macián, Víctor; Herrero Vicent, Pasqual; Solaz Fuster, Eduardo José; Sebastià Esteve, Maria Amparo
Sustainability is the optimal relationship be tween peopl e, envi ronment , economy and available technology. Heritage and sustainability are strongly linked, as today’s heritage is nothing but yesterday’s sustainability. Nevertheless, through our work with different city councils in Spain, we found that sustainability and heritage have three main problems when it comes to urban planning. The first problem is that they tend to fall under separate areas of policy (disciplines) and are dealt with by different ministerial departments. Heritage and sustainability policies are therefore badly coordinated in their application. This may lead to contradictory solutions. A second general problem in urban planning that influences the relationship between sustainability and heritage is the time between the planning conception and the implementation of the results on the ground. Urban planning consists of long term activities that take a long time to get fully implemented. We can only really see if the original planning ideas were correct once their results have manifested themselves, often years after the original policies and plans were conceived and investments made. If those plans are not effective, we will have wasted many resources that we cannot reverse because it will cost then even much more time and money. We cannot follow a trial and error process. Finally, heritage and sustainability policies need to be filtered according to the specific context of every city. The people, the natural environment and the history of every city are so different, that the policies cannot be directly applied without being adapted to local circumstances. Solutions for similar problems need to be adapted to the specific needs of the cities where they are applied.
Open Access
Public Spaces with Cultural Value: the case of Heraklion
(AESOP, 2014) Nasos, Alexis
As cities march on into the 21st century, they are faced with great challenges in all aspects of urban governance. Particularly during times of crisis, defining priorities becomes increasingly difficult as well as risky, and authorities are required to exceed their usual agendas in order to successfully address complex issues. In such a context, promoting the issue of the preservation of architectural and urban heritage might seem a triviality. But is it possible to legitimately argue in favour of disregarding the value of cultural components within a modern city? Martin Meade [1] points out the “instances where buildings, villages or whole towns have been destroyed deliberately, in order to deprive populations or ethnic groups of their sense of cultural identity” as evidence of the impact the built environment can have on the qualitative attributes of communities and thus, on whole nations. The case study, which is analysed in this paper, is an example of how undermining the relationship between the built environment and the historic and cultural consciousness of its inhabitants can lead large parts of the population to discard traditional values. The result is a switch towards adopting superficial practices and lifestyles, effectively creating problems that can even magnify the consequences of a financial crisis.
Open Access
Heritage Conservation, Sustainable Communities & Tourism Strategies: case studies from Taiwan
(AESOP, 2014) Cexiang, Foo
Within the current climate of macroeconomic uncertainty, social unrest and global environmental risks, nation states have worked furiously but often with little consensus on the sustainable development agenda. Instead of relying solely on nation states and politicians, this paper argues for resilient local communities to drive this agenda from the local level by developing sustainable local economies, strong social networks and environmentally friendly ways of life. This bottom-up approach will complement any top-down Government or inter-Governmental agenda, but cannot be replaced by the latter. We are guided by the American philosopher Lewis Mumford (1938) in our definition of resilient local communities: “We must create in every region people who will be accustomed, from school onwards, to humanist attitudes, cooperative methods, rational controls. These people will know in detail where they live: they will be united by a common feeling for their landscape, their literature and language, their local ways, and out of their own self-respect they will have a sympathetic understanding with other regions and different local peculiarities. They will be actively interested in the form and culture of their locality, which means their community and their own personalities.” This means that resilient local communities are made up of people steeped in the local heritage.
Open Access
Architecture with architects: urban proposals for three villages in the province of Tarragona, Spain
(AESOP, 2014) Peralta Zaragoza, Anna
land in Spain; by 2006 that had increased to 1.014.000 hectares, almost doubling urbanization in 20 years. Thousands of hectares of rural land have disappeared by applying a model of city-building with many shortcomings, such as priority for traffic above people, poorly used public space, mono-functional areas and low density. As a result there are sustainability problems (both environmental and economic), inefficient public transport, bad quality of the public realm and loss of ‘place identity’. This study focusses on the fact that there still exist a large amount of land with an approved urban plan with the same deficient characteristics. This article shows the conclusions of a study of some villages in the province of Tarragona by students and professors from La Salle architecture school in Barcelona, on alternative ways for planning our built up areas. The aim was to establish a balance between both the history and the culture of the settlement and between high environmental quality and functional issues. The research project has resulted in a new method of interpreting and projecting the settlement and its landscape, which could be more widely applied.
Open Access
Urban project “Cáceres 2016: de Intramuros a Europa”
(AESOP, 2014) Richard, Florie
“Cáceres 2016: de Intramuros a Europa”: during the 2000’s, this Spanish city located in Extremadura, in the south-west of the country, launched a major urban project called “an integral action of urbanistic regeneration1” of its historic centre. It was strongly linked to culture as the city was nominated for the European Capital of Culture for the year 2016. Cáceres is far from being the first Spanish city to focus its urban development and regeneration objectives on a major project or cultural event, and followed the famous example of the urban requalification of Bilbao. But in this case, the city proposed a project which seems “softer” in the way it didn’t seem to involve a profound physical restructuring. However this major project, announced as a commitment to the sustainable development of the city around its patrimonial historic centre, still proposed significant changes in order to initiate a new dynamism. How then did this multi-thematic project combine the constraints of the heritage preservation process and the objective of a sustainable development for the city? Indeed, both of these concepts frequently depend on different disciplinary fields, distinct political strategies and legal frameworks and various skills, and therefore require specific practices. Under these conditions, faced by their own requirements on practical implementation, the question arises: how to combine them within a specific spatial framework and integrate their own practical objectives in the implementation of a project? The heritage preservation dimension is paramount, as the main goal of the framework is the historic centre. But how does sustainable development fit in, faced with patrimonial requirements? How can it be mobilised in an urban project established in this context? This is the general issue that led us to refer to an academic project in 2010 directed by Laura Verdelli, linked to the research project “R+0 ! Développement durable et conception des espaces publics des centres modernes des villes méditerranéennes / R+0 ! (Sustainable development and public spaces design in modern Mediterranean city centres”} under the coordination of Romeo Carabelli (UMR 6173, CITERES). The goal of this project was to check if the measures linked to public spaces in the framework of an urban regeneration project in a historic centre took care of sustainable development.
Open Access
Some examples of heritage conservation in India: “Intangible vocabulary ingrained in Indian urbanism” - case study of Chennai city
(AESOP, 2014) Sasidharan, Priya
Sustainability has never been contested as an exclusive domain on the Indian canvas as it has been an integral way of life through the chronology of urban evolution. Cultural settlements fostered by the community, legacy safeguarded by power dynamics and the accommodative assimilation of building contemporary identities have been the underlying context. Heritage conservation in the Indian context has its myriad pluralities that reverberate global outlook and echo the local fervour. From preservation of built environment through the legal framework to conservation practices by the community as historical traces and its vestiges present an interesting investigation. The temporality of such history bound spaces and places strikes discernible equilibrium with urban development either as a listed group of built spaces to be preserved or precincts to be conserved. The underlying chord of community adopted conservation adapted and modified sustainable strategies from traditional wisdom need showcasing. The restoration of the past does not pertain only to ‘museumising’ the historical legacy but to its extended lineage of reviving the passage of time tested sustainable practices and tradition that captures the true essence of heritage conservation and sustainable development.
Open Access
Approche historique de la Place Anatole France, un espace en contact permanent avec l’histoire A historical approach to the Anatole France Square: an urban space in permanent contact with history
(AESOP, 2014) Durdevic, Jan; Lamirault, Valentin
Anatole France Square is a public space in the oldest part of the city of Tours. Through the centuries it has undergone many changes, but its unique historical wealth and identity are inseparable from those of the city of Tours as a whole. The purpose of this short chapter is to briefly trace its history. During the Celtic era, the Tours region – called ‘Touraine’ - was occupied by the Gallic people of Turones, so Anatole France Square was probably an agricultural site with orchards. Tours was founded following the Roman annexation of Gaul in 52 BC. The area now covered by the Anatole France Square was not included in the first settlement, implanted in the present Saint-Gatien neighbourhood. In the medieval era, Tours, like many contemporary cities, was divided into two distinct urban centres: the Cité and the Châteauneuf. Even though the square did not belong to either of these neighbourhoods, an abbey dedicated to St. Julien was located on its perimeter and the successive enlargements of the abbey since 1240 are still partly visible. During the Hundred Years War, to defend Tours against the English, the ancient walls of the Cité and the Châteauneuf were replaced by a new wall which enveloped the area now known as Anatole France Square.
Open Access
Two main issues in the transformation of Anatole France Square, Tours
(AESOP, 2014) Durdevic, Jan; Lamirault, Valentin
A theatre of diverse and varied urban elements, this northern end of the rue Nationale offers potentially a rich range of visual experiences. There is variation in elevation, architectural style, street furniture, land-use density etc., a rich diversity. If these potentials could be exploited and developed, such a space could represent a substantial asset for the central urban perimeter. However, at the present time this contribution is lacking. The square has no common core where all its parts intersect. There is not even a minimal, recognizable uniqueness; it is not a cohesive, clearly defined and identifiable whole. This strategically important space is static, more a heavy conglomerate of separate parcels, without direct links between them. This promotes the emergence of barriers, both physical and symbolic, making movements in the square unnatural and uneasy. This singular conformity substantially promotes a negative perception of the area. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a coexistence between the different particularities of the square and provide a common identity cutting across them as the first major development priority. This approach means a profound change in the current arrangement; it is necessary to rethink the connections between the different parts of the area. The encouragement of alternative movements of people by a less balanced and symmetric organization of structural elements and urban furniture, with more parcels ‘irrigated’ by pedestrian movements, and less dominance of current ‘main lines’, is one of the main objectives to deal with this first issue. However, the desire to unify whilst preserving diversity in Anatole France Square is a question of fine balance and therefore carries with it a warning. Whilst it is necessary to improve the present homogeneity, an all too exotic or radical renovation would undermine the identity of this urban space. The proposed project must therefore be an optimization of the existing space, not a total upheaval.