The aim of *Permis de construire* is to create a grand theatrical epic lasting around ten hours, which will seek to explore all the practical and philosophical aspects of housing construction.

The article Winning project of the CNRS ‘Science and Society’ call for proposals first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

The results of the “PITT: Interdisciplinary Projects and Thesis Trios” call for proposals have just been published. The LATTS is among the successful applicants!

DC_RISK_CITY

Data centres, multifactorial risks and urban resilience

• Main research areas: Data centres, urban metabolism, financialisation, geopolitics
• Brief summary of the project: The aim of the project is to analyse the socio-ecological dynamics and multifactorial risks associated with the establishment of data centres, with a view to creating resilient and resource-efficient cities.
• Principal investigators: Félix Adisson (LATTS, Université Gustave Eiffel), Petros Chatzimpiros (LIED, Université Paris Cité), Ludovic Halbert (LATTS, CNRS), Clément Marquet (CSI, École des Mines Paris – PSL)

NESPAMEX

New Public Spaces: from design to management

• Main research areas: Soils / maintenance / metabolism
• Brief summary of the project: The transformation of public spaces in urban areas, shifting from a planning approach to an operational approach.
• Principal investigator: Daniel Florentin (LATTS, École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées)

PERENNIAL

Sustainability of Buildings and Infrastructure in the Face of Climate-Related Stresses

• Main research areas: Buildings / maintenance
• Brief summary of the project: The project aims to shift the maintenance of urban technical infrastructure towards low-tech practices that can be incorporated into future renovations or construction projects.
• Principal investigator: Laetitia Mongeard (Lumière Lyon 2 University)

Daniel Florentin is involved in the PÉRENNIS project. We are looking for a PhD candidate to work on changes in maintenance practices among water operators in the context of increasing climate pressures. Please email your application to Daniel Florentin.

The article 3 LATTS projects have been selected under the PITT call for proposals first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

The Ministry for Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion

is launching a new recruitment campaign for sustainable development research fellows. A position in sociology/political science is available at ENPC and assigned to the Techniques, Territories, and Societies Laboratory (LATTS, UMR 8134) on the theme:

"Analysis and evaluation of public energy and climate policies

."

The article Opening of the CRDD competition first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Website of the "Developing Greater Paris" Chair

News
The "Developing Greater Paris" Chair has published its eighth newsletter presenting its research, training, and promotion activities for the period June–December 2022. Link to newsletter no. 8

The article Chair in Planning Greater Paris first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Partners:
Gustave Eiffel University, LATTS
Paris Est Créteil University, LAB'URBA
University of Perpignan, CDED
University of Avignon, ESPACE
Ecole des Mines, ISIGE
Aix-Marseille University, TELEMME
Open University (London)

InveST analyzes the implementation of sustainable development requirements in local public action in a context of increased financial rigor. To this end, it tests two hypotheses: first, that the rationales, instruments, and practices associated with this austerity influence the selection of priorities and the content of local public action in terms of sustainability; second, that public action carried out under financial constraints accentuates disparities between and within territories. To this end, InveST questions the ways in which financial austerity is represented and mobilized by actors as both a constraint and an opportunity for the implementation of local sustainability policies. It also analyzes financial practices and power relations in territorial political systems in order to qualify the role of austerity in transforming political agendas, objectives, and the conditions for the production of public action on sustainability. These issues are studied through two complementary objects. The first describes the evolution of central government policies and its relations with local authorities in the application of the austerity agenda. The second is a comparison of six urban inter-municipal groups. The analysis of financial discipline is carried out for five areas of public action selected for their financial weight and sustainability challenges: local authorities' land and real estate assets, water networks, social housing, urban and economic development, and sustainable mobility.  

The article ANR INVEST first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Funding: French National Research Agency (ANR), via the I-SITE FUTURE special grant

Duration: 4 years (2018-2022)

Academic partners outside LATTS: around 100 researchers, mainly from Gustave Eiffel University, but also from other institutions (Telecom Paris, Paris-Dauphine University, Mines d'Albi, etc.)

UrbaRiskLab (URL) is a project that aims to create a multidisciplinary center on the theme of risk/crisis in urban environments. It was founded on the observation that all crises (whether natural, climatic, chemical, pathogenic, economic, cyber, societal, etc.), whether planned or unplanned, exceptional or chronic, slow or fast-moving, generate significant scientific, technical, organizational, and political uncertainties. They raise crucial questions in terms of preparedness, monitoring and detection, modeling tools, anticipating cascading effects, emergency response, decision support, and post-crisis management. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the dynamics of risks and crises in urban environments is a scientific challenge that must be addressed in order to provide strategic, political, technical, economic, and social responses to these problems and make cities safe and resilient. URL was designed as a research center offering innovative, multi-risk, multi-scale thinking and solutions that represent a technological breakthrough. From the outset, the project was designed to be scalable and experimental.

The process of creating the multidisciplinary center required several steps: on the one hand, a bottom-up approach to analyzing the expertise available within the consortium. URL brings together around 100 researchers from more than 30 different disciplines who, together, offer expertise and scientific coverage of all categories of risks affecting urban areas. Thus, without listing them exhaustively, natural and environmental risks, climatic and meteorological risks, risks related to infrastructure and technical networks, health risks, risks related to social inequalities, risks related to major events and crowd movements, and road safety issues are an integral part of the research carried out within the consortium. The project draws on expertise in the hard sciences (applied mathematics, statistics, geosciences, analytical chemistry), engineering sciences (mechanics, biomechanics, civil engineering), environmental sciences (hydrology, hydraulics, metrology, new sensors, (eco)toxicology) and social sciences (sociology, geography, urban planning, economics, management sciences, architecture, psychology).

While mapping the skills available within the consortium, URL has developed a methodological framework to encourage the creation of interdisciplinary projects. As an experiment, "MiniLabs" were set up to function as "research incubators" within the project. They are run by pairs of researchers from the SPI and SHS. Their titles cover a wide variety of risks and disciplines and provide food for thought across the board. There are currently four of them:

• The "Data Analysis and Processing" MiniLab focuses on the two overarching issues of data optimization and reliability. It also reflects on how to measure the uncertainty generated by unreliable data.
• The "Sensors and Uses" MiniLab focuses on innovative sensor technologies, automated data processing, and new societal uses.
• The "Visualizations" MiniLab focuses on the extraction and exploitation of information (textual and image), the representation of complex data, and the design and co-creation of interfaces with end users.
• The "Information Circulation in Adverse Conditions" MiniLab focuses on the need for and quality of data for target users, problems with interpreting and transferring information in crisis situations, and even the societal impact of degraded information (fake news, etc.).

The article UrbaRiskLab first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Under the scientific supervision of François-Mathieu Poupeau (LATTS) and Virginie Boutueil (LVMT), the "Mobility as a Service" research program was launched in October 2020 as part of the "Regulating the City of Tomorrow" Chair signed between École des Ponts ParisTech and RATP. Led with the help of Julia Janke (post-doctoral researcher) and Thomas Quillerier (research engineer at LVMT), it focuses on the development of "Mobility as a Service " (MaaS), which can be broadly defined as a service for users, offered via an app or website, that combines several modes of transport with route calculation, fare estimation, and payment features. MaaS is now known under brand names such as Whim, Citymapper, and Waze, to mention only the most widely used and popular worldwide.

Appearing in the 2000s against a backdrop of digital technology development and the rise of new shared mobility modes and services, this tool, which can be likened to a digital platform, was notably promoted in France by the Mobility Orientation Law of December 24, 2019, which strengthens the powers of mobility organizing authorities. It has several objectives: economic (to boost the transport and mobility offer, particularly alternatives to the car), environmental (to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions through reduced use of private vehicles), and social (to promote better accessibility for people who do not have a private car or public transport near their home or work).

The introduction of MaaS raises many challenges for public authorities, particularly for French regions and inter-municipal authorities, in their capacity as mobility organizers. What position should they adopt with regard to this tool (let the market do its work, encourage, support or supervise its deployment, etc.)? What skills and forms of regulation should be developed to control its use (contractualization, public-private partnerships, modes of governance, etc.)? What links with traditional transport operators need to be rethought? What coordination arrangements between territories are needed to avoid fragmentation? These are some of the questions addressed in this research project, which draws on a multidisciplinary team of humanities and social sciences researchers drawing on work in sociology, political science, geography, and socioeconomics.

To answer these questions, the project is built around three complementary areas of research.

The creation of a global observatory of MaaS platforms aims to provide an accurate and comprehensive description of the tool's dissemination, based on a standardized definition (what scope of transport and service offerings qualifies as MaaS? What are the minimum features that must be included?). In order to understand the dynamics of the deployment of these platforms, in space and time, the data produced at the start of the project will be updated in 2022.

The purpose of writing a number of city monographs is to provide a more detailed and qualitative analysis of how local public authorities are adopting MaaS in practice. In particular, it will address issues such as the choice of economic models, forms of governance and regulation, and the implementation of public policies (in terms of the environment, social inclusion, etc.), depending on local contexts.

The final aspect of the project, which is more "operational" in scope, is the establishment of a methodology for evaluating the effects of MaaS. It responds to a stark observation: the lack of a reliable tool for evaluating what these platforms produce for the community. At the very end of the project, the aim will be to develop a methodology enabling public authorities to better measure and understand the impacts that MaaS can have in relation to the various objectives that may be assigned to them.

In addition to regular meetings between the LATTS-LVMT and RATP teams, the project is organized around a biannual seminar entitled "The mobilization of MaaS by cities: models, governance, effects." Bringing together an audience of researchers and practitioners, it aims to structure a community for discussion around MaaS and its uses.

Guillaume Fournier, who is writing a thesis at LATTS on the deployment of MaaS in French cities, is also involved in this work.

The article ParisTech School of Bridges and Civil Engineering – RATP Chair "Regulating the city of tomorrow" Research focus: Mobility as a service (MAAS) first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

The article Resilience in the face of a global and systemic crisis: the case of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus pandemic first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

What is largely missing in these timely debates, however, is a systematic and in-depth engagement with the political significance of the ongoing "urban revolution"—a term coined by urban sociologist Henri Lefebvre in 1970.  Building on his work, a few scholars, such as Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid, have elaborated on the territorial and socio-spatial aspects of planetary urbanization, namely the increasingly uneven, complex, and polycentric nature of the urban at the scale of the entire planet. But the question of politics is still treated tangentially. Is there a particular kind of urban politics corresponding to our urban age? Do we need to rethink the way in which we govern our cities, the common resources that cities offer? Is international investment in real estate beneficial for cities?

To answer these questions, we first need to develop an understanding of the increasingly dominant urban-based accumulation practices. There are indications that speculation on land and real estate is becoming increasingly global. Multinational real estate companies and investors that operate on a global scale have important consequences for cities. 

URBAN-REV POLITICS approaches global urbanization and its contestations from the perspective of the production and consumption of the built environment. Using a political economy approach, it seeks to understand wealth generation strategies based on the production and consumption of urban space and specific urban transformations that they underpin, as well as how these are negotiated and challenged at the local and global scales.

The project is organized around three interrelated themes corresponding to three sub-projects (work packages):

The first is the uneven globalization of real estate markets. Here we trace the interactions between various influential public and private actors (investors, asset managers, brokers, real estate developers, politicians, decision-makers, etc.) to understand how their decisions and actions have impacts in specific sites.

The second is the exploitation of urban space through rent extraction. Here, in relation to the first subproject, we examine how a profit-driven approach informed by various risk-return calculations and negotiated with local authorities affects urban spaces.

The third is the ways in which these often highly speculative interventions in urban spaces are negotiated and contested at different scales. We examine both the formal sphere of politics as well as contestations by civil society groups.

Using a multi-sited ethnography approach, the work is based on Istanbul, London, Paris, and São Paulo. These cities feature comparable processes of property-led (re)developments, and a variety of activist and advocacy networks that challenge these.

URBAN-REV POLITICS seeks to contribute to debates in the fields of urban planning, urban political economy, and economic geography. Many of the themes we engage with, such as urban redevelopment, competition between cities, gentrification, and urban social movements, are the focus of significant scholarship today. Other themes discussed, such as speculative urbanism, urban land rent, the finance-real estate connection, and the urban commons, have recently begun to attract (in some cases renewed) attention. However, these discussions tend to occur in a rather compartmentalized fashion. For instance, property-led urban redevelopment and gentrification are rarely discussed in relation to the transnational sites and networks of negotiation between state, finance, and real estate actors. Similarly, work on real estate studies does not sufficiently engage with issues related to conflict and contestation. The overall objective of the project is to offer a transnational and comparative account that not only ties these threads together in a coherent manner, but also offers an empirically substantiated framework for understanding the political implications of global urbanization.

Key words
Urban land rent, globalization of real estate markets, urban commons, urban social movements

Methods
Comparative analysis, transnational ethnography, commodity chain analysis, participant observation, interviews, discourse analysis

Researchers (past and current):
Ozan Karaman (PI)
Eliza Benites-Gambirazio
Martine Drozdz
Sinan Erensü
Antoine Guironnet
İlknur Kurşunlugil
James Christopher Mizes
Mathilde Moaty
Zhumin Xu

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant agreement No. 680313)

https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/680313/fr

The article URBAN-REV POLITICS, The Urban Revolution and the Political. first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

The research program of the "Inventing Greater Paris" transversal group now has three objectives:

1. To develop an overview of research on the history of Greater Paris and comparisons with other metropolises.
2. To encourage new scientific questions on urban and metropolitan history,
3. To compile an inventory of sources and memories related to the history of this metropolis.

Method
With this in mind, the scientific project of the newly created cross-disciplinary group is structured around several areas of work:

1. A bi-monthly research seminar dedicated to epistemological questions at the crossroads of disciplines that examine the history of urban planning. This seminar is supplemented by one or two more open study days.
2. Research projects carried out by dedicated teams; the main project focuses on the creation of a bibliographic, archival, and iconographic corpus relating to major development plans (for the period 1928-1960), which is currently being used to develop an atlas of Greater Paris plans.
3. An editorial project aimed at building a resource center on the history of Greater Paris by publishing conference proceedings, study days, and scientific articles; Publishing news about research projects.
4. A corpus (including iconographic material) for research purposes, i.e., one that can be explored using innovative methods.

Keywords
: History, Greater Paris, Metropolis, Planning, Transnational

General coordination
: Frédéric Pousin, Nathalie Roseau
, Alessandro Panzeri

To find out more about Inventing Greater Paris: www.inventerlegrandparis.fr
The program and proceedings of the IGP seminar can be viewed at the following address:
http://www.inventerlegrandparis.fr/chantiers-de-recherche/seminaire-igp/

The article Cross-functional group "Inventing Greater Paris" first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Report for a public works group, Prevention Department, March 2019.

The research aimed to understand the mechanisms by which corporate occupational health and safety policies produce their effects in terms of accident rates and economic performance, but also encounter limitations that may, to date, remain relatively enigmatic to stakeholders. It was carried out by a multidisciplinary team (economics, ergonomics, management, and sociology) and combined a qualitative approach with quantitative analyses. The group's prevention policy has developed a number of tools that reflect its desire to organize safety: informing and raising awareness of risks, listing them in order to better avoid them, and combating risk-taking. This includes a database of near misses and various awareness-raising and incentive schemes. A network of quality, prevention, and environment (QPE) professionals is an integral part of this policy. The group's prevention policy explicitly relies on the conviction of managers at all levels, considering that without a deep-seated belief in the importance of prevention on the part of managers, a group policy would lack real leverage.

The research revealed several findings and results. As much as it is influenced by individuals, and in particular by the ability of agency managers to take ownership of this policy and demonstrate their commitment to it, the effective deployment of tools is also influenced by economic reasoning. Even with highly committed management, economic considerations can take precedence: this can be seen in the case of an emergency on a construction site or in order to obtain a contract, knowing that the client is not sensitive to prevention. In this company, as in others in the sector, the indicators and management control of the agencies and the group effectively place prevention in juxtaposition with economic considerations. Although they are informed and aware of the tools available for prevention, workers are keen to report situations where this policy seems to give way to more pressing imperatives, such as the speed of completion of a project, catching up on accumulated delays, etc. The decisive factor is that project planning integrates prevention primarily in administrative terms. The schedule, initially based on the study and invoiced costs, focuses on ensuring that the project is completed within the budget. It leaves it largely up to the construction site and its management to adjust to the actual conditions. However, the realities of construction sites are marked by the normal nature of uncertainty, recurring downtime, and emergencies. For the construction site hierarchy, which is directly involved in concrete situations where the tension between economics and prevention must be resolved, there is nothing simple about embodying and implementing prevention measures in a credible manner. QPEs also have a complicated path to find their position in the articulation between a policy whose rules are formulated in the abstract and concrete situations that challenge the compatibility between economics and prevention.

Keywords
: Occupational health and safety. Risk and accident prevention. Public works. Occupational risk management tools.

The article Safety on construction sites: preventive measures and their implementation in a public works company first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Final assessment of EUREQUA

The article Multidisciplinary evaluation and environmental requalification of neighborhoods (EUREQUA). first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.