Everything Will Be Transformed
The paradigm of our time is transformation. Faced with major systemic challenges, we need to take a proactive rather than a reactive approach. The idea of resilience puts a new spin on how we address the urban system and how it is changing. It is about making a city sustainable by giving it the wherewithal to absorb changes while preserving its structure. To make buildings or urban structures capable: capable of transformation, of changing use.
Rather than aiming to meet only performance criteria, we must remember that “to last is to be transformed.” Embracing reversible design, but also rehabilitating the reversible—stop tearing down, or at least tearing down less. And to meet the challenges of saving buildings that were not designed to be reversible and whose transformation is complex. Adaptation is a challenge facing our cities at a time when the surface areas allocated to offices, housing, retail, and service spaces are gradually being redistributed in the light of new urban uses. And where the need to fight against urban sprawl, if we want to preserve fertile soils, requires us to revisit how we design.