Processus de requalification durable des franges urbaines fondé sur la démarche de composition urbaine

Abstract

The problems that our cities are facing today are defined in terms of the urban pressure, which results from poorly managed densities, social strains and also an excessive consumption of land. The main indicators of such a phenomenon are clearly noticed in the way that road infrastructures and transport facilities are restructured, encouraging thereby urban sprawl (Fusco, 2005), which gradually has led to the fragmentation of urban territories (Rojas, RV., 2001) along with the degradation of living conditions and the quality of life (Desjardins, X., 2008).These changes, as they occur in our cities, bring us back to the understanding of the initial framework and the conceptual principles governing the sustainable requalification of urban territories and the promotion of urbanity (Roncayolo, Devillers, Ch., 1996). They also lead us to rethink the options for a better integration of environmental concerns in the design of urban space, and to find out the means of transcending places and cultures in a context where the phenomenon of globalisation tends to deny local specificities. It is in this same context that the urbanization process has developed procedures for urban design and spatial planning (Lacaze, JP., 1996; Pelletier, J. & Delfante, C., 2000). It has conformed itself to regulations that contributed to codify different levels of strategic planning interventions at operational stage, yet without providing meaningful answers to the problem of urban sprawl and the quality of life. Therefore, there is an absolute need for an appropriate re-contextualisation of urban issues, which means an urgent re-understanding of the notion of ‘urban composition’ (Hanning, G., 1983; Pinon, P. & Panerai, P., 1990; Guibert, P.; Riboulet, P., 1998) and its new sense as to emerging issues in peri-urban areas. Indeed, urban composition is meant to adjust to matters of temporalities and urban changes. It brings together the multiple dimensions in which the urban phenomenon occurs, in order to implement a sustainable development approach (CREDOC, 1992; IFEN, 1996 – 1997; Poquet, G. & Hatchuel, G., 1992). From this perspective, a special attention is given to the urbanisation of fringe areas (Déclaration Pour l’Avenir des Franges des Métropoles, 2001 ; Lemonier, M. & Remy, J., 2005; Larceneux, A. & Boiteux, C., 2006; Sievvert, T., 2004), which raises questions concerning the identification of the urban fringe territories and their apprehension in response to the problem of urban sprawl, in order to develop appropriate approaches that would take into account the issues of spatial requalification, urban values and urbanity. Hence, the main hypothesis in this thesis assumes that the levels of failure governing the incoherence of the urban landscape are principally linked to poor instrumentation, and above all the concealment of the urban composition stage in the process of urban planning (Parin, C., 2005; Levy, A., 1996). From that point, this thesis has set itself the objective of proposing a more relevant intervention strategy with more appropriate working tools in order to bring better solution to the emerging problems in urban fringes. The proposed strategy is based upon a method of assessment of quality, which aims at providing a pragmatic decision-making process that only the development of indicators can guarantee, and that would serve in return as a reference system to the establishment of the main conditions for the sustainable redevelopment of urban fringes. In addition, the proposed methodological approach in whole would allow to addressing the multidisciplinary nature of the identified urban problems, as well as their multidimensional and multi-scalar nature, and would treat at the same time the interactions between some key components in a systemic approach – these components being urban structures, quality and environment. In order to reach its objective, this thesis adopts the urban fringe of Boukhadra in Annaba (located at some 400 km of Algiers – capital of Algeria) as the main case study for the application of the empirical methods related to the assessment of the quality of fringe territories, as a means of understanding the process of urban composition and sustainable urban development. The broader purpose of this research aims to integrate urban composition as a specific stage in the process of recovering the missing link between the scales of urban planning and architectural design. This step suggests the xiii operational implementation of the evaluation techniques for the assessment of the quality of urban life through the establishment of accurate specifications and monitoring tools of urban quality.