Within the discourse framed by a commitment to energy transition, there is a growing emphasis on promoting energy flows at sub-urban scales between various activities. Local, national and transnational stakeholders are, for example, proposing to recover so-called ‘waste heat’ produced by a wide range of activities (industry, data centres, wastewater treatment, etc.). At the same time, there is a push to share decentralised energy production across different sectors (residential, tertiary, commercial, etc.) at scales ranging from the block to the neighbourhood. In short, forms of connection between urban activities for the exchange of energy are being promoted, and examples of their implementation are multiplying.

This thesis proposes to view these connections as new forms of urban networks, which are replacing or overlapping with a model of a large, centralised network that is over a century old, based on technical and economic efficiency, territorial integration and increased consumption. It aims to understand how the emergence of these local flows is changing the co-construction of the city and energy networks.

To understand these transformations, this thesis draws on two strands of research. On the one hand, urban and socio-technical research on networks helps to understand the reconfigurations of these infrastructures. On the other hand, the field of industrial and territorial ecology analyses the dynamics that lead to the exchange of material flows between human activities. Combining these findings thus enables us to understand the subject under consideration in its social, technical and metabolic dimensions, that is to say, from a socio-material perspective.

The analysis is based primarily on three case studies, focusing on understanding their emergence, operation and development: the supply of Dunkirk’s district heating network via an industrial heat source, heat recovery from a data centre to supply a neighbourhood in Marne-la-Vallée, and the pooling of energy production in the La Confluence neighbourhood of Lyon. More broadly, the study examines concrete or proposed reconfigurations of the organisation of the urban energy supply chain.

The findings of the thesis fall into three categories. Firstly, these networks are no longer driven solely by the technical and economic efficiency of the networked structure for supplying the region. The interests of the various actors involved all relate to the objective of optimising the use of flows: there is thus a shift from a quest for technical and economic efficiency to one of metabolic efficiency. Secondly, the networks emerging from these exchanges are unstable, particularly due to uncertainties regarding the short- and long-term evolution of available flows. Consequently, they do not replicate the unifying effect afforded by the stability of large conventional networks. Finally, in the face of these instabilities, the stakeholders propose developments aimed at reducing dependencies on uncertain flows. These developments are characterised by relying on network growth that no longer pursues a goal of universalisation. On the contrary, a strict spatial selection of network expansion is applied, based on the actuality of flows as perceived by the stakeholders. Rather than generating new consumption through a supply-driven approach, the aim is thus to integrate new flows already present in the region.

In short, the thesis highlights a certain ‘metabolic shift’ in the process of connecting the city through energy. Whilst the expansion of infrastructure has long been at the heart of network development, the flows of energy produced and consumed that already exist within the area may now be the primary motivation for establishing connections.

Members of the jury

• Sabine Barles, Professor, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (rapporteur)
• Nicolas Buclet, Professor, Université Grenoble Alpes (examiner)
• Olivier Coutard, Research Director, CNRS, UMR LATTS (examiner)
• Gilles Debizet, Senior Lecturer, Université Grenoble Alpes (examiner)
• Gabriel Dupuy, Professor, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (rapporteur)
• Laurence Rocher, Senior Lecturer, Université Grenoble Alpes (examiner)
• Taoufik Souami, Professor, University of Paris-Est (supervisor)

This thesis examines the conditions under which seismic risk emerges in Istanbul—before a seismic disaster strikes—by studying the interrelationships across geographical scales and the potential interactions between actors and stakeholders involved in this process. Particularly following the August 1999 earthquake in the Marmara region, the prospect of a potential major earthquake (olası depremi) in Istanbul has brought together the city’s key stakeholders to address the issue. The research draws on a qualitative study to closely track the operators (scientists, engineers, public institutions for planning and disaster management, construction and property firms, associations) who, in the sense of the sociology of science and technology, ‘take an interest’ in seismic risk. The increasing complexity of the concept of the ‘fabric’ allows us to reconceptualise the modes of interaction between risks and urban spaces in a joint manner, centred on two strands of analysis. The first strand explores the performative aspect of seismic risk, in order to understand how this risk structures the organisation of urban planning in Istanbul.

Against a backdrop of economic and political instability, vulnerable buildings present a challenge in terms of seismic risk and bring together stakeholders in the construction sector, whilst in turn fragmenting the professional world of urban planning. The second strand examines, at the neighbourhood level, the local assemblages at work in the construction of urban space, as material and social products of negotiations—whether settled or not—between urban planning stakeholders and residents and their representatives (neighbourhood mayors, associations, solidarity groups or disaster education centres). These highlight alternatives for managing risks based on new forms of knowledge.

Conversely, their re-institutionalisation at higher levels raises questions about the standardisation of local practices. The thesis highlights the complex relationships between risks that, on the face of it, belong to different categories. It emphasises the idea that, as seismic risk is interpreted and translated, seismic hazard becomes diluted within broader constellations of actors, entities and correlated risks. Through the lens of socio-technical systems, the thesis sheds light on the delicate coexistence of these risks in the same location, if not their intertwining or even friction.

Composition of the jury

• Laurent Devisme, Professor at ENSA Nantes (Rapporteur)
• Valérie November, Research Director, CNRS (PhD supervisor)
• Jean-François Pérouse, Senior Lecturer (HDR), University of Toulouse Jean-Jaurès (Examiner)
• Sezin Topçu, Research Fellow, CNRS CEMS-EHESS (Examiner)
• Elsa Vivant, Professor, Gustave Eiffel University (Examiner)
• Albena Yaneva, Professor, University of Manchester (Rapporteur)

This thesis in urban planning examines a public policy instrument designed to encourage the transfer of public and quasi-public land, which forms part of the wider trend towards negotiated urban planning: calls for innovative urban projects (APUI). These consultations have been the subject of much debate in academic and professional circles within urban planning, with some viewing them as a privatisation of planning, whilst others see them as a breath of fresh air in professional practice.

This thesis highlights how, for their initiators, APUIs function as instruments of remote governance despite the transfer of project management responsibilities to property developers, with ‘innovation’ helping to enlist the support of urban planning professionals. They constitute a response tailored to the circumstances of their initiators: evolving strategies for legitimising local government, a reduction in local authorities’ financial leeway, and the development of project-based approaches within contexts of fragmented governance. These consultations represent an attempt to modernise urban public action – and, by extension, public administrations. They temporarily reorient the operational logic of several professional sectors whose spheres of activity interact with one another.

To analyse the work currently underway, our analytical framework draws on various strands of sociological research: justification, translation, public action, management tools and activity. Drawing on ethnographic research, we highlight the challenges arising from the industrialisation of the ‘project mode’ and ‘innovation’ on the work of elected representatives, local public officials and project management assistants, from the launch of consultations through to the finalisation of winning property development projects: eventualisation and mobilisation, coordination challenges, and the legalisation and subsequent managerialisation of the public-private relationship. We highlight the pivotal role of artefacts in framing the activities of stakeholders. In doing so, we examine the reconfiguration of the tools, expertise and methods of operational urban planning driven by public initiative.

These findings provide broader insights into the changing priorities of professionals in the urban sector. We highlight an increase in media and networking activity, as well as a proliferation of intermediaries. These shifts call into question the meaning, resources and role assigned to expertise in shaping the relationship between public and private actors in the urban sector.

Composition of the jury

Véronique Biau – State-certified architect and urban planner (HDR), ENSA Paris-La Villette – LAVUE (rapporteur)
Alain Faure – Research Director, CNRS – PACTE (rapporteur)
Corinne Delmas – Professor, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS
Laurent Devisme – Professor, ENSA Nantes – LAAU
Silvère Tribout – Senior Lecturer, University of Rennes 2 – ESO
Guillaume Tiffon – Professor, University of Evry Paris-Saclay – Pierre Naville Centre
Emilie Bajolet – Deputy Director of Consulting and Planning, AREP (guest member)
Elsa Vivant – Professor, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS (supervisor)

Innovating innovation. This is the essence of open innovation, which, ever since its formalisation within management science, has been hailed as the ‘new imperative for creating and capitalising on technologies’. Presented as a new management paradigm, this concept nevertheless encompasses a wide variety of definitions and realities depending on the stakeholders—who are increasingly seeking to adopt its organisational models. This thesis focuses specifically on this search for new models that are constructed neither within companies nor solely by innovation collectives, but through physical spaces and mechanisms of cooperation emerging within digital worlds to operate in the in-between, as third spaces distinct from the former. It aims to demonstrate that this ongoing search, far from being haphazard, is organised beyond a mere assemblage of management tools, through modes of action and representation that take shape within these spaces, in a situated manner, in the form of new practical and relational conventions of cooperative work.

Taking an empirical approach, this thesis offers an ethnographic immersion into the experience of ‘La Cantine’, the first co-working space to establish itself as a hub for digital innovation in Paris, managed by a business association, Silicon Sentier. Initiated in 2010 as participant observation, the research was conducted between 2011 and 2014 on three fronts: the venue, open innovation mechanisms, and the intermediation work carried out at the interface of heterogeneous worlds. Rather than treating open innovation as a given, the description enables us to trace how a particular conception emerges within the venue’s institutionalisation process (Part 1), through its physical dimension and hybrid framing mechanisms (Part 2), as well as in the intermediation work carried out by its staff (Part 3). The thesis draws on a variety of theoretical frameworks to analyse each of these aspects: an ecological approach to social worlds, a situationist approach to frameworks and framings, and, finally, an interactionist approach to cooperative work. By bringing these approaches together, it ultimately offers a conclusive study that broadens the scope of the reflection developed within La Cantine, extending beyond it, as open innovation mechanisms spread throughout the organisational world. This broadening makes it possible to characterise these ‘frontier mechanisms’ by a constant movement of framing and overflow, of shared structure and interpretative and organisational flexibility, of formalisation and destabilisation, through which the principles of cooperation originating in digital worlds are not only translated into the realm of interactions, but also institutionalised in increasingly distant worlds.

Members of the jury

• Valérie BEAUDOUIN, Director of Studies at Télécom ParisTech (Rapporteur)
• Alexandre MALLARD, Research Director at Mines ParisTech (Rapporteur)
• Dominique CARDON, Professor at Sciences Po Paris (Examiner)
• Franck COCHOY, Professor at the University of Toulouse II (Examiner)
• Alexandre MATHIEU-FRITZ, Professor at the University of Paris-Est (Examiner)
• Patrice FLICHY, Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris-Est (Director)

In cities across sub-Saharan Africa, where the average rate of access to electricity stands at 60% to 70%, ensuring universal access to electricity remains a challenge. In this context, the development of the ‘large centralised grid’ – a priority for public authorities – and the proliferation of decentralised solutions, such as solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, are leading to hybrid urban electricity configurations. The thesis takes this observation as its starting point—the implications of which for electrification policies and the urban energy transition are still poorly understood—and aims to test the hypothesis of a forced adaptation of national electricity systems in cities experiencing rapid demographic and economic growth.
At the intersection of research from Transition Studies, urban political ecology and energy justice, it develops three lines of research. The first analyses how electrical hybridisation is concretely embodied in urban systems (technologies, actors, scales, territories, market mechanisms, regulatory and policy frameworks, etc.).

The second explores whether and how forms of governance emerge from this hybridisation, and examines the socio-technical representations and imaginaries that inspire them. The third examines how the rise of solar PV is shaped by urban socio-environmental inequalities and, in turn, impacts them, whilst simultaneously leading de facto to a redefinition of an essential service.

By focusing on the socio-technical interfaces between decentralised solutions and the wider grid as ‘sites’ for observing the transformations taking place, the methodology draws on a detailed inventory and mapping of the diverse modes of solar PV urbanisation, an analysis of the evolution of legislative and regulatory frameworks, and a study of actual practices regarding the installation and use of hybrid electricity access systems. Mindful of the power relations that shape these interfaces and the inequalities they engender, it also draws on tools for analysing the discourses and representations that accompany and influence the transformations underway. The primary field of investigation is the Dakar region in Senegal. This case study will then be placed in perspective alongside other urban contexts across the continent.

Neither an affiliation with a particular discipline nor access to specialised workspaces and instruments is sufficient on its own to define a scientific culture. What researchers from diverse backgrounds work on shapes a unique way of conceiving their activities, practices and relationship with the world. Their success is inextricably linked to a subject, and to the fortune that subject encounters as an innovation within a social context that both constrains and simultaneously shapes it. How is this (re)orientation towards a new thematic area organised, given that current trends in funding practices now specifically favour this framework? This thesis explores the concept of the ‘field of research’, which we define a priori as the framework for interactions between researchers’ professional activity and society around a shared theme; it argues for its epistemic dimension.

This thesis examines, in parallel, the development of bioenergy—one of the main forms of so-called renewable or sustainable energy derived from biomass—along with its key players and their strategies, against a backdrop of strong incentives to drive a global energy transition, yet also of intense social controversy. The two objectives of this thesis converge: describing the mindset inherent to a particular field of research is necessary to understand, beyond mere rhetoric and promises, the actual modes of innovation development (in this case, the large-scale mobilisation of plants, microorganisms or waste to produce biofuels) and, ultimately, to enable everyone to assess its relevance.

Members of the jury

• Marc Barbier, Research Director at INRA, PhD supervisor
• Céline Granjou, Research Director at IRSTEA, Rapporteur
• Bruno Latour, Professor at Sciences Po, Examiner
• Catherine Paradeise, Professor at the University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, PhD supervisor
• David Pontille, Research Director at the CNRS, Examiner
• François Vatin, Professor at the University of Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Rapporteur

Whilst post-war urban planning in France was characterised by central government intervention in the land and property markets, decentralisation has been accompanied by a decline in public land policy measures implemented by the central government. Since the 2000s, however, there has been a renewed ambition on the part of public authorities to intervene in land markets, in response in particular to the growing difficulties in accessing housing and the issues of land sealing observed in metropolitan areas. This relative resurgence of public land policy in France, underpinned by the rise of specific funding and dedicated organisations such as public land agencies (EPFs), appears counter-intuitive given the changes currently affecting the development systems of European cities: increasing budgetary pressures, the rationalisation and privatisation of the public housing stock, the significant role of private operators in the early stages of development projects, etc.

This thesis sets out to explore this apparent tension between, on the one hand, the growing and evolving role of private operators in the development of urban spaces and, on the other hand, the rebuilding of public capacity for land management prior to the implementation of urban and property development projects. By focusing on the practices and mechanisms deployed in Île-de-France since the 2010s, three lines of analysis are proposed. Firstly, the thesis examines the gradual re-establishment of public land management capacity in the Île-de-France region, through a study of the financial, legal and regulatory mechanisms, socio-technical instruments and organisational arrangements underpinning such measures. Secondly, it examines the implications of this renewed land policy for the system of urban space production and for the relationships between private property developers and the public actors involved in their regulation. Finally, it explores the ambivalent social and spatial effects of public land policy on property developments in the Île-de-France region, through an analysis of the networks—that is, the coordinated chains of actors—around which this policy is organised. In doing so, this study examines the potential contribution of public land policy mechanisms to the dynamics of tertiarisation and financialisation in urban development in the Île-de-France region.

This book unfolds like a Chinese landscape painting that the eye slowly takes in. I use this metaphor because I am describing a panorama. It is not made up of mist-shrouded mountains or wind-swept bushes, but of data centres, delivery warehouses, and the flow of social media…

I am exploring the hypothesis that the internet forms part of a broader trend towards breaking society down into smaller components, thereby making its mechanisms more fluid. A concept from chemistry – the reduction of matter to powder before reassembling it – is also applied to social relationships, memory, and humanity in general.

Just as reducing matter to powder accelerates chemical reactions, reducing society to powder enables the accelerated decomposition and recomposition of the substance of which humans are made. It enables a proliferation of reactions within society, of humanity’s output, of social chemistry: the combinatorics of passions (Charles Fourier), the hyper-fragmentation of labour (Mechanical Turk), the decomposition of knowledge (Paul Otlet), the Internet of neurons (Michael Chorost), and society through the aggregation of affects (Facebook). This is what I call the ‘cloud society’.

Members of the jury

• Thesis supervisor: Antoine Picon (University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, City, Transport and Territories Doctoral School, Techniques, Territories and Societies Laboratory)
• Joint supervision of the thesis: Pierre Cassou-Noguès (University of Paris 8, Doctoral School of Practice and Theories of Meaning)
• Emmanuel Mahé (École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs)
• Nicolas Thély (University of Rennes 2)
• Nathalie Roseau (École nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, LATTS)
• Karen O’Rourke (Jean Monnet University, Saint-Étienne)

Over the past twenty years or so, interest groups representing private companies have been (re)structuring their collective action in the metropolitan areas of Paris and London. These groups include the regional Chambers of Commerce (CCI Paris Île-de-France, LCCI), regional employers’ organisations (Medef, CBI) and recently formed groups (Paris Ile-de-France Capitale Economique and London First). Once focused – at the local level – on internal and organisational concerns, these groups are now in the public eye, are assertive in their demands and are making their case on an unprecedented scale: the regional-metropolitan level.

Our work has developed at the intersection of two areas of inquiry:

On the one hand, research into collective action by businesses is marked by a debate that challenges the notion that collective action by general economic interests is necessarily politicised. Some authors indeed demonstrate their inability to sustainably build collective action capable of exerting influence; this interest being ‘naturally’ subject to the dynamics of collective action based on membership (Olson 1971).

On the other hand, the reference framework for this collective action – the metropolitan region – poses a problem insofar as its governmental and institutional basis is unclear (the Île-de-France region, the Greater Paris metropolitan area?) or relatively recent and lacking in power (London and the GLA)  (Jouve and Lefèvre 2004).

Our research therefore seeks to address the following question: Does the (re)structuring of collective action by economic interest groups in London and Paris Ile-de-France aim to influence its political environment? If so, how can we explain the choice of the metropolis as the spatial scale for this restructuring?

By tracing the history of these groups’ collective action (Part 1), examining their internal and external operating mechanisms (Part 2) and demonstrating that they represent the specific interests of the corporations driving globalisation (Part 3), we argue that these groups are developing a genuine strategy of influence.

Using transport as a prime example, we demonstrate not only that the metropolis constitutes one of the scales of their space of dependency (Cox 1998), but also that this space is multi-scalar. Consequently, the metropolis appears more as their new sphere of engagement (Cox 1998). This specific economic interest finds here the means to achieve the scalar synthesis of all its scales of dependency: from the local to the global.

Situated at the intersection of risk research and urban studies, this thesis examines the establishment of neighbourhood crisis management committees (known as CCE in Spanish), participatory mechanisms promoted by Costa Rica’s national risk management policy since 2006 and established in San José, the country’s capital, since 2012. Created on the initiative of local authorities and composed exclusively of residents, the CCE aim to involve residents of areas affected by emergencies in risk management activities.

In the Costa Rican metropolitan area, these measures are implemented in particular in neighbourhoods affected by urban flooding – events that disrupt daily life in the city and are emblematic of so-called ‘urban’ risks. These risks are linked to morphological factors, as well as to settlement patterns, urban activities and services.

Adopting a systemic approach, the study examines the relationships forged between local government officials and local residents within these participatory committees. The thesis draws on a variety of empirical sources: a study of institutional archives, cartographic work, and interviews and participant observation in two neighbourhoods with different socio-economic profiles, Barrio Luján and La Carpio.

The thesis demonstrates that top-down mechanisms, ostensibly designed by bureaucrats to promote a ‘culture of risk’ amongst the population, are exploited by both residents and local officials to defend their respective projects and interests in the areas concerned. The systemic and comparative approach reveals that this instrumentalisation is neither unambiguous nor fixed: it evolves in step with the interactions between the two actors. Thus, by highlighting the contextual and dynamic nature of risk definition across neighbourhoods, the thesis draws attention to the unstable nature of the categories proposed by public risk management, which are reappropriated and subverted by the way in which residents make them their own. In both cases studied, local residents constantly highlight the limitations of public policy and its contradictions regarding its stated objective. From this perspective, the thesis highlights the contribution of residents’ conceptions of the territory and invites reflection on new pluralist frameworks for risk policies.

Composition of the jury

• Bruno Barroca, University Professor, Gustave Eiffel University, examiner
• Mathilde Gralepois, Senior Lecturer – HDR, University of Tours, co-director
• Jean-Pierre Lévy, Research Director, CNRS-Latts, PhD supervisor
• Patrice Melé, Professor, University of Tours, rapporteur
• Pascale Metzger, Senior Research Fellow – HDR, IRD, rapporteur
• Valérie November, Research Director, CNRS-Latts, examiner
• Julien Rebotier, Research Fellow, CNRS-LISST, examiner
• Helga-Jane Scarwell, University Professor, University of Lille, examiner

The focus on disasters has confined most research into risk to the history of specific events. Moving beyond this approach and following in the footsteps of Fernand Braudel, our thesis is rooted in the history of the long term, as evidenced by ‘the morphological trajectory of the urban landscape’ and ‘the trajectories of architecture’. In other words, we shall draw on the traces of the history of territorial morphology to understand architecture as a process of stabilising an inhabited and meaningful materiality anchored in socio-technical networks. Our hypothesis is that the hybridisation of architecture enables us to identify the fluidity of these historical strata (in the sense of Marcel Roncayolo) by revealing situations of risk and their resolution. The thesis aims to discuss this hypothesis through a historical approach, grounded in architectural theory and socio-geographical references. The ultimate objective is to propose an innovative approach to architecture by demonstrating that it can serve as a revealer of the unstable nature and volatile dimensions of risk.

The historic centre of Tunis forms the basis of our empirical approach. This choice is justified primarily by the fact that it is an area exposed to risks, yet one that has not recently experienced any catastrophic events. Our analysis is based on the study of three architectural typologies representative of Tunis’s history: a traditional house, a European-style building and a self-built dwelling. These enable us to identify three levels of understanding of the dynamics of risk generation in relation to scientific, economic, social and even ecological contexts: 1/ the crystallisation of risks through technical hybridisation via risky attachments, 2/ the amplification of risks through the hybridisation of uses and standards, 3/ the fluctuation of risk situations due to their recalcitrant nature. By situating itself within the paradigm of the extensive roots of risk, the thesis highlights its generative processes through the prism of urban temporalities and architectural hybridisations. It reveals the importance of documenting the systems of belief and knowledge specific to each territory. The loss of memory regarding natural disasters, coupled with the erosion and alienation of knowledge concerning hazards, social norms, architectural materialities and modes of habitation, are the triggering factors for risk situations. Ultimately, this thesis proposes the construction of an architectural understanding of risk based on an indexical logic, which forms part of a reconstruction of historical, context-specific knowledge reactivated by lessons learnt.

The rise of a ‘participatory imperative’ is driving a renewal of public action and opening up the decision-making system to all stakeholders. Users are thus encouraged to get involved in order to broaden the pool of available knowledge and to have their perspectives taken into account on the basis of their user expertise. Aiming to understand this renewal and to define the place and role played by users within these participatory bodies, we have structured this thesis around the figure of a ‘competent user’. In other words, an actor capable of co-producing public action and sharing their user knowledge.

Our analysis of two participatory schemes, drawn from the field of urban transport, first enabled us to highlight the concrete impacts of user participation on the solutions and directions adopted for the project under discussion. We then examined these approaches in the light of the principles of collective design applied in the fields of industrial engineering and management sciences. Finally, we demonstrated that in order to establish collective public action based on the development of user expertise, three conditions must be met: legitimisation, formalisation and implementation.