When Constraints Shape the City

Constraints are a given of any urban program and can, depending on the case, become obstacles to achieving the aims of a project. But they can also serve as a catalyst for adapting, being creative, and opening up new solutions.

A first large-scale experiment was carried out in 2007 in the Avenir Gambetta district in Ivry. This was an opportunity to set out principles that would steer our studio’s practice in the long term. Developers were beginning to question the levers to activate to make their operations compatible with the Grenelle Environment Round Table: it therefore felt important to associate the general objectives applied across the national territory with a “counterforce”, envisioned as a “territorialization” of the Grenelle Environment Round Table.

If design is to be common and shared, sustainability can only be forged by a hyper-contextual approach. This exploration showed that it is feasible, with the necessary resources, not only to build a city, but a diverse and pleasant city, by working with constraints.