The Subtle city – serendipity in a sustainable ecocity
This work continues our previous researchs about architecture – interactive architecture, movement architecture, chaos architecture and subtle architecture -, housing and city – Nd city -.
The subtle city is a sustainable city, building itself over time. It mainly consists in additions or alterations made on territories which are included in existing cities. It aims at building the city on the city, rather than imagining a city ex-nihilo.
The subtle city is also a smart-city with a sensible intelligence, a city that coordinates the nspaces – i.e. environments which are connected both in the physical and in the virtual world -, a city based on spaces and link, but that allows also to disconnect and meditate in places which are neither private nor religious.
The subtle city plays with climatic elements/events in order to create serendipity and inject poetry in the urban space. It creates both material and immaterial aesthetics, and establishes link in between. The surprise arising from the city produces a social tie.
The subtle city is confined, it does not aim at expanding itself beyond its borders. However, the subtle city is connected to the countryside. Rather than promoting an urban farming, it promotes a close rural agriculture. That is why it is indissociable from a wider notion of territory.
An introduction : Sensitive cities to/through subtle architectures
This video (TED talk – English, Arabic, Spanish subtitles) introduce our researches concerning sensitive smart-cities, nspaces, immaterial aesthetics and subtle ar(t)chitecture.
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« Creating a city is giving life wings. »
TEDx Lyon, France, january 2015
The subtle city organizes itself around 7 axes :
A SHARED-city : sharing
To rethink/To manage/To adapt time and space according to the needs of the inhabitants, the users and the uses in order to share some spaces, at different scales, and between different groups of individuals.
A DIVERSIFIED city : social mix, diversity
To distribute and to share the urban intensities over time and space by carrying mixed programes providing a mutualisation of uses.
A POETIC city : serendipity
To inject surprise in the city in order to generate smiles, enjoyment, meetings and social tie through the intelligent use of the urban resources.
An AGILE city : adaptability
To create typologies of spaces which may change in the short-term or in the long-term, which may change of uses or change of users by adapting the place : a non-fixed area that must be able to transform itself according to new needs.
A WOODED city : fauna & flora
To create a biodiversity corridor by planting accurately trees upright, at different levels of the buildings, following a bioclimatic and aesthetic approach.
An INGENIOUS city : Not to answer to preconcieved requirements, but adjust the environments to the needs. A city that is easy to maintain and that can turn its defects into qualities, but also a city providing services and well-beeing, a city where the digital technology is in the service of people and place (energy saving, networks, immaterial poetry…).
A PRODUCTIVE city : Energy-Positive Territory
An energy-positive territory, saving energy but also producing it; a territory that works in concert with the neighbouring (rural) territories : production/sales of vegetables in cooperation with farmers, cultural productions, new industrial producers (FabLab, makers…).
Eric Cassar 2016
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