Calculation as a Compass
At our studio, calculation is used to make the matter of ecology tangible, quantifiable, and communicable by adapting it to the local context. At the heart of everything we do, our expertise, and our R&D initiatives, it is a tool, a resource, a language, which serves our action through projects, at every scale.
In 2008, the studio took part in the Grand Pari(s) consultation (urban planning consultation for the Greater Paris region) in association with MVRDV, the team’s lead representative. A compass for guiding action, the City Calculator© invented during the process was designed as a tool for measuring the ecological footprint of the area, enabling a diagnosis to be formed and the effectiveness of the measures planned to be gauged, whether they be urban policies, infrastructure, related to development or construction, etc. A way of deconstructing preconceptions, putting the usual suspects—polycentrism, green belt, the density-connectivity binomial—to the test in Greater Paris, and guiding the transformation of the region through the pursuit of efficiency.