Integrative decision-making strategy for fluvial neighborhoods in transition

Abstract

The changing relationships between cities and their waters over the centuries lead today – after a clear sidelining of rivers in the city – to question their potential for building new interactions. Current densification objectives of the existing built fabric resonating with the protection measures against floods bring out a broad field of exploration regarding the evolution of the urban riverbanks. Within this context, the research presented here focuses on the Rhône, an emblematic territory of the regeneration of urban riverbanks. Besides the technical means of risk management in flood-prone areas, landscape, urban, and architectural issues question the project approach to adopt for the development of new fluvial neighborhoods. Furthermore, many challenges raise for the management and steering of these sites in transition. Their regeneration in sustainable fluvial neighborhoods being closely linked with the accentuation of their characteristics, the ambition of the ongoing research consists in developing an integrative decision-making strategy specific to the issues related to the transformation of the urban sites along the Rhône. In that order, three steps are applied: 1. a prospective phase on four representative study areas, 2. the development of specific city-river balance components, and 3. the experimentation of an unprecedented multi-criteria comparative evaluation approach. These tools are not only strongly interconnected but are also parts of the integrative decision-making strategy, which is the main expected output of the research.

Promoting a city-river balance within neighborhoods in transition along the Rhone

“…Our investigations revealed that the regeneration of rhodanian sites presents similar issues in terms of territorial planning but also different contextual specificities [13]. Hence, the decision-support tool compares independently project-based visionsi.e., forward-looking neighborhoods projectsfor each site.…”

“…The transformation of abandoned or underused river sites into sustainable neighborhoods represents an opportunity to reconcile the inward densification of the built environment -when there is no risk of flooding -with the quality of the natural environment. The integration of sustainability objectives into the regeneration process must go hand in hand with the accentuation of the specific city-river dynamics [13]. It implies the implementation of innovative and integrative approaches, likely to federate a diversity of actorsresearchers and practitionersworking in various urban fluvial territories (architects, urban planners, geographers, engineers, municipalities, operators, …), around a shared cultural imaginary linked to living near water [6].…”

“…On the one hand, it is structured around environmental, socio-cultural, and economic sustainability indicators [39]. On the other hand, it offers a comprehensive set of indicators related to the city-river balance [40].…”

“…The prospection step takes a research-by-design approach [40,48], where the project process becomes a concrete research tool that lies between theoretical and operational issues. Research-by-design explores unprecedented links between the methodological rigor of research and the inventiveness potential of the project, thanks to the notion of integrated design [49].…”

“…These project-based visions look at the interactions between the urban space and the river space: the buildings' establishment (position to the river, distance to the urban center); the physical environment (size of the site, density, urban morphology, building typologies); usage (type and rate of activity, number of users, cultural elements); the city-river interaction (type and nature of the relationship with the river, public and green spaces, ecosystems, risks). The intention is to see the emergence of possible fluvial features that go beyond a renewed physical contact with the water [40]. In that sense, the project-based visions are the data used for the development as well as the testing of the city-river balance indicators, and more generally, the decision-support tool.…”