By bringing the research potential of laboratory-ENSAG CRATerre and constructive
cultures, the 2011-2014 research project being developed by the Architecture
Research Unit, Environment and constructive cultures addresses the central issue
of housing and habitat in relation to the
issue of sustainable development and eco-construction.
The unavoidable question is directly related to the
choice of type of development to which we want to go.
In France, reports on the poor housing of the Fondation Abbé Pierre highlight
the housing shortage plaguing the country.
Just over six million people now live in precarious conditions, which represents
nearly ten percent of the French population.
Beyond this segment that is experiencing increasing difficulties, housing
remains a major item of expenditure for the rest of our citizens.
More broadly, the issue of home ownership and credit is for most of us, a
challenge on the scale of life ... In this context, the lack of access to
housing - despite the
existence of a housing rights now enshrined in legislation - interview
architects as agents of the production process in the construction industry.
Although they can work on all aspects, it is their responsibility to reflect on
this fundamental issue and to participate proactively in search of spatial and
technical solutions best suited to changing the situation.
We consider it essential that our research unit to
take up this issue and form new generations of designers involved.
Internationally, the issue is even more sensitive.
That's over half the world population lives in conditions of discomfort
notorious space and, in too many cases, in conditions of hygiene and safety are
not even worthy of minimum standards recognized by the
United Nations ... The issue of access to housing is also another level of
complexity in situations of prevention and risk management of natural disasters
over which the researchers of the unit are positioned.
So it's a global issue that concerns us all.
From the qualitative point of view, choices made in the field of materials and
modes of territorial coverage and spatial organization have a direct impact on
health, energy and the economy of the country.
Internationally, the major choices about the mode of production of building
materials and urban organization irreversibly affect on natural resources and
balance global climate ... These colossal stakes warrant, in our view, the
mobilization of all the creative energy and reflexive together architects,
planners, engineers, anthropologists and sociologists, historians and
philosophers, gathered in a multidisciplinary team.
There are now more than twenty years, our experience of social housing on the
island of Mayotte, made us realize the magnitude of the chain of consequences
which was part simply to ask a mud brick
on another, and to launch a local chain of production and construction.
Thus, the aim of the research unit is to contribute significantly to developing
the most intelligent solutions for our future.
This path which links research to teaching has been initiated with the last
four-year 2005-2009.
It relies on research and development projects that enhance the testing of
prototypes made of eco-housing in the program "Under the sun ... exactly," the
"Solar Decathlon" (Madrid 2010) and its
variations in the territory of Saone et Loire (71) 1.
This research should be located with a view to developing the project "City of
sustainable construction," with its "workshop on" his "workshop proptotype" and
"workshop inhabited" (or eco-district demonstration) that
changing part of Grands Ateliers de l'Isle d'Abeau.
Finally, other R & D prototypes of human settlements and economic housing
"located" will also be made in the south and through the intervention of
reconstruction after natural disasters during the period 2011 -
2014.