Can urban greening come to the rescue of life in cities?
The summer of 2022 has sadly left its mark on the history of France. Some people see it as the clear consequences, others hear alarm bells ringing... With an unprecedented drought, repeated dramatic fires and record temperatures, France, like other countries around the world, is overheating! This fact highlights the vital and indeed health-giving role played by urban greening.
“De-gendering” cities: a new criterion of attractiveness?
Cities are made by men and for men: they have historically been planned and designed to reflect the traditional role of the male gender. This is a considerable problem since all genders should have equity in sharing the public space.
Building schools in modular wood
Interview with Marina Da Silva Carvalhais, R&D projects and Wood Construction Innovations (WeWood).
Flax: A fibre of the future for construction?
Resistant, light, efficient, ecological… Flax is used in construction on land and even on the sea! In 2022, the Netherlands inaugurated the world’s first linen bridge. A navigator used it to build the hull of his boat… Can this plant material really meet the needs of urban construction?
Is digitalisation the key to building differently
Attracting talent, mitigating climate change, and improving productivity: These are the construction sector's three main challenges. BIM and various digital tools offer useful solutions, but these are not enough.
What if your sites were supplied via rivers instead of roads?
Faced with the current energy situation, we must urgently find alternative solutions that will enable us to change the ways we produce and transport our materials. Among the solutions considered, one of the priorities – particularly for the industrial sector – is to find means of transport that are more energy-efficient and less harmful to local residents. Focus on river transport.
New challenges in public space
Today, public spaces are facing new challenges – societal, environmental, political, technological and economic – and must deal with the uncertainty of a changing world. How can public spaces be designed to meet the various expectations of society while also being able to adapt to future developments?
Free public transport: issues and positions of the key players in the debate
The issue of free public transport was widely debated in France’s 2020 municipal elections. Its presence on the headlines of many campaign documents demonstrates the political, environmental and societal nature of the issue. Several issues arise from the implementation of such a public policy. We examine the positions of the key stakeholders in the debate.
How do you design green roofs?
Green roofs are on the up and up. And for good reason! They have many environmental, economic and social benefits. In addition to their aesthetic appeal, they can promote biodiversity, improve the insulation of buildings and retain rainwater. Recent research conducted by ecologists is improving our understanding of the conditions under which rooftop vegetation thrives and develops, and assessing the quality of ecosystem services provided by different types of roofs. We consider the factors behind the design choices for such ecosystems.
What kind of governance is appropriate for a convivial city?
At the request of Bouygues Construction and La République des Hyper Voisins, six students from the École Urbaine at Sciences Po Paris worked for nine months on creating conviviality in urban areas. The proposed exploration strategy is to create the conditions for conviviality by introducing a professionally-structured form of citizen action on a micro-local scale. Explore their recommendations for the forms of governance that are most conducive to the emergence of convivial spaces, based on eleven areas of investigation in France and Switzerland.
How do players in US construction innovate?
Interview with Viviane André, an analyst at Winnovation, a Bouygues Group subsidiary.
Should we build higher and higher to fight against land artificialisation?
The fight against urban sprawl and land artificialisation is a national priority that is pushing those in the building sector to look for solutions to make cities denser. One of these solutions is to build ever taller buildings. A controversial issue.
The French Towns Adopting Sustainable Construction Charters
Many towns and cities are looking for a way to remodel their urban planning to give them resilience in the face of climate issues. One such solution is to rally the stakeholders in an area - residents, companies and local authorities - to move towards housing solutions that are innovative, sustainable and accessible to all: that is the cited goal of the ‘sustainable construction charters’ emerging around France.
How much will the ecological transition cost the construction industry?
In the last segment of its sixth activity report, the GIEC specifies very clearly that on the economic level, the ecological transition will prove less expensive for the global economy than if we do nothing. Several sectors are highly exposed to this issue, in particular transport, energy and construction. But acting, how much will it cost? The subject is a complex one but initial estimates are starting to be seen.
Guide to Regreening Cities
Focus on planting initiatives to regreen cities including urban canopies to provide plant life without digging, planters with automatic watering or rainwater harvesting systems, “oasis” schoolyards, and urban mini-forests.
Tackling traffic congestion in cities
Tackling traffic congestion has always been a major challenge for local authorities. Many different approaches have been attempted, including adding lanes, removing lanes and multimodal transport.
Towards a more “ecosystemic” energy performance of buildings
Controlling energy consumption has become an environmental, social and economic necessity, due to the numerous impacts on the biosphere and society as a whole: climate change, depletion of natural resources, deterioration of health, etc.
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Top of the month
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3 questions for Andry Zaïd Rabenantoandro, a PhD student at Chaire Construction 4.0
Bouygues Construction and Centrale Lille formed Chaire Construction 4.0 in 2017, to support the digitalisation and industrialisation of the sector. We met with PhD student Andry Zaïd Rabenantoandro, whose thesis is on 3D printing in construction.
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What kind of governance is appropriate for a convivial city?
At the request of Bouygues Construction and La République des Hyper Voisins, six students from the École Urbaine at Sciences Po Paris worked for nine months on creating conviviality in urban areas. The proposed exploration strategy is to create the conditions for conviviality by introducing a professionally-structured form of citizen action on a micro-local scale. Explore their recommendations for the forms of governance that are most conducive to the emergence of convivial spaces, based on eleven areas of investigation in France and Switzerland.
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Dismantlability, for a circular economy in construction
Applying the principles of the circular economy to the city, circular urbanism advocates a change of approach to build the city on itself and make better use of existing assets and resources in the process of urban design. This is a matter of urgency in the context of climate change, resource scarcity and the critical fragility of the ecosystems from which the materials are taken. According to Sylvain Grisot, author of a manifesto on the subject, recycling spaces, transforming the existing while avoiding deconstruction, and intensifying the uses of spaces are the three golden rules to adopt in order to radically change our methods. Among the many possible tools, let’s explore the dismantlability of buildings: what is a dismantlable building, how should it be designed and for what purpose?
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Building reversible today, to better transform tomorrow
Reversible construction means anticipating from the programming and design stage to facilitate future transformations of a place. But why take on this challenge, and in practice, how?
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Interview of the month: Martin Sénéchal
Martin Sénéchal, urban ecologist and landscape architect at Elan
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Seniors and housing: a model in need of reinvention
(Français) Le vieillissement de la population n’est pas un phénomène nouveau. Mais l’augmentation de l’espérance de vie en bonne santé et l’arrivée massive des baby-boomers à la retraite accélèrent fortement le phénomène. Pour preuve, il y a en France depuis 2015 plus de +65 ans que de -18 ans ! Et en 2030, un français sur 3 aura +60 ans. Qui sont les seniors ? Quels sont leurs besoins et attentes ? Quelles implications sur les offres d’habitat ? Découvrez ci-dessous quelques éléments de réponse.
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Interview with Martin Fisher
How has BIM tech improved productivity? What are its most innovative applications in construction? What can we expect from BIM in terms of Big Data? Martin Fisher, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, answers all our questions!
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Why Bouygues Construction is investing in vocal assistance
Find out why Bouygues Construction is getting closely involved, in particular by investing in the startup Simsoft Industry.
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Robotics and virtual reality used for health and safety
Improving working conditions on sites with a system combining robotics and virtual reality. This is far from a fairy tale - this research and development programme will come into effect in 2020. The aim is to train employees to pick up the right habits, via a process that is both visual and tactile.
