Within temperate zones, the current climate projections anticipate a rise in temperatures, as well as a rise in the frequency of extreme heat events. Such case would disturb the inhabitants’ acclimatisation practices in these areas, leading to the emerging of cooling systems for public and private urban spaces. In this instance, the expression “cooling systems” is understood beyond air-conditioning systems, and is considered as a set of techniques offering different degrees for conditioning the climate parameters within the built environment. Nowadays, cooling takes new forms within urban space, which we call “spatio-climatic devices” (e.g. cooling canopies, miroirs d’eau, air-conditioned envelopes). In the European context, the consequences of these devices on the material forms, social practices and sensory perceptions in the urban space are little known. The COOLSCAPES project’s aim is to study these spatio-climatic devices within their physical, use and sensory dimensions. A better understanding of their effects will help identifying the appropriate cooling techniques for the populations facing the future climate. Three specific objectives lead this project: (1) characterizing and spatializing the climate parameters in terms of ambiance; (2) characterizing the citizens’ uses and perceptions; and (3) analysing the current cooling practices and identifying the emerging lines of reflection. The interdisciplinary research will revolve around three phases. Firstly, we will identify and analyse innovative devices, either on the technical or spatial scale. Secondly, relying on a selection of devices, we will set up a research methodology based on data collected in situ. We will undergo work on geo-tracked physical measurements on the pedestrian’s scale in order to characterize the thermal parameters in terms of ambiance. A specific mobile measuring device will be conceived to this end. We will then study the uses and behaviours, before examining the citizens’ sensory perception, using targeted methods. These two steps make up the base of a methodological experimentation on the cross-referencing of quantitative and qualitative data. Lastly, we will undertake a documentation work on the state of play, and an identification work regarding perspectives on cooling systems for the urban space. This last step will be possible through open interviews and a prospective seminar, involving outside experts. On the scientific level, the study will offer innovative empirical and theoretical knowledge on cooled urban spaces in temperate cities. The results will allow for a better and finer understanding of the link between cooling techniques and spaces, uses and perceptions. The research subject will provide a prime testing ground for interdisciplinary research, stimulating the intersection of humanities and social sciences, engineering and environmental science, as well as architecture and urban planning. On the economic, social and cultural levels, the study will be directly in touch with local services and communities regarding the debate on urban summer comfort. On the one hand, our contributions will allow us to better understand the effects and potential of spatio-climatic devices for the institutional adjustment initiatives to climate change. On the other hand, we will support the transfer of knowledge with professionals (designers, planners, operators, producers). Lastly, we will establish an interdisciplinary network around the AAU UMR, composed of national and international stakeholders, regarding cooled urban space.

PROSECO will bring new elements of understanding of the place of sensitive approaches in the whole production process of urban space and will complete the existing works on sensitive experiences of urban spaces. Four objectives structure the project: (1) understand the place of the sensitive approaches in the design process, for the stakeholders and designers but also for the designers (architects, landscapers, urban designers…); (2) understand sensitive experiences and their social and political effects; (3) understand the sensitive dimension of environmental issues when considered in space production; (4) understand the relationships between design process and reception/experiences. The methodological approach combines: (1) an inventory of projects in 5 French territories, in order to highlight 10 sites; (2) on these 10 sites, a survey with professionals in urban production (seminars, interviews, walking interviews); (3) on 3 sites, a survey with the inhabitants and users (ethnography, interviews, commented walks, sensorial pouches, focus group workshops). This research will bring knowledge on the consideration of the sensitive approaches by the professional stakeholders of urban production. This is a particularly innovative aspect because no research has been carried out in France on this subject. In addition, it will shed light on developments and evolutions of space production professions in contact with environmental issues, complementing existing work from a new angle. PROSECO will consolidate existing work on the socio-political aspects of the sensitive experiences of space and will contribute on its scale to a renewal of the sensitive approaches in contact with environmental questions. As an extension, the results of this research will inform and evolve operational practices and will certainly feed the pedagogy. The communications of research among the scientific and professional community and the non-scientific community is envisaged during the research (social media, research notebook, communications and publications), but also halfway (actions oriented on scientific mediation), and at the end of the research (symposium and double publication). PROSECO brings together a multidisciplinary team around the coordinator, and aims to give new perspectives to her work by developing a specific thematic field, but also to consolidate current reflections in her research laboratory and reinforce old or more recent collaborations.

The HAPARÊTRE project sets out to explore the links between residing and participating, drawing on contrasting fields of ethnographic inquiry. It assumes that a priori residence – in the sense of a given – is no basis for being prompted to take part. No more than the opposite, namely that it should be an external principle of good governance to require residents to participate. In short, our purpose is to test the assumption that residing and participating emerge jointly and thus contribute to investing agents who take part with a special quality. The challenge is to acquire the descriptive means to qualify this gain: a form of residing which makes one feel responsible on account of having been a party to the conditions and process of its formation; furthermore a form of residing in which one ontologically holds a stake, in so far as such residing is itself the condition and framework for a certain way of existing. Herein lies the meaning of Haparêtre, as the detailed ethnographic exploration of the coupling between habiter (reside) and participer (participate), and its consequence: the adjoining of a third term être (exist). HAPARÊTRE posits their joint, situated construction within the time framework of exploration conducted, here and there, on what it means to “reside here”. It also assumes that there is an immanent contribution to residing in so far as some habitats constitute the condition and framework for forms of existence. An initial set of surveys will observe this participation as closely as possible to everyday residence, focusing on challenging situations: residing in flats adapted to accommodate patients suffering from cerebral palsy; residing in homes for the terminally ill. A second set of surveys will examine more specifically participatory experiences: building together, residents and architects; keeping track of a neighbourhood’s past after a major urban renewal scheme. By shifting the problematique of participation to situations of specialized accommodation, where the emphasis is placed primarily on overall autonomy, HAPARÊTRE seeks to draw attention to the need to address the political charge of micro-arrangements in which rights, responsibility and solidarity are experimented and defined. Furthermore, it hopes to prompt debate on vulnerability from a different perspective than simply the empowerment and emancipation of a (political) subject. In return, pursuing the problematique of residing to revisit the field of participation will make it possible to reintroduce biographical time and duration, dimensions all too often absent from participatory arenas dominated by presentism. By confronting these two probematiques and two sets of field surveys, the ultimate goal is to make a significant contribution to the political and ontological issue of the ‘residents’ category, grasped as a collective and not just nominal entity (referring to a collection of residents). Regarding methodology and discipline, HAPARÊTRE will give priority to qualitative investigations as close as possible to phenomena, while asserting the need to intertwine field and disciplinary work, and consequently the various methods of inquiry. In other words the predominant methodology – and conviction – underpinning the project will be ethnographic, informed by sociology, architecture and anthropology, but also geography and philosophy. HAPARÊTRE will affirm the heuristic character of comparing research experience, as soon as the field phase starts. The various members of the team will not be restricted to their particular field, but confront that of their fellows. To accompany this dense ethnographic investigation HAPARÊTRE will be setting up various systems for analysis and sharing, starting with a two-monthly seminar throughout the 36-month research project.

Adapting cities to climate change is an urgency that local authorities must address. To support their efforts, a better knowledge of the climatic specificities of their built environments, but also of the climatic experience of city dwellers is needed. To this end, PICOPATT introduces the notion of urban picoclimate and proposes to study it from a scientific and operational perspective. Two methodological assumptions guide the project: 1) Mobile measurement is currently the only way to approach the complexity of real urban climate situations at the spatial and temporal scale of individual experience. This approach, made possible by the miniaturization of sensors and the reduction of their latency, guarantees a fine description of the parameters that characterize the dynamics of climatic perception along pedestrian routes. 2) Data mining and visualization techniques are suitable for identifying characteristic patterns of picoclimatic situations in masses of measurement data. Indeed, these data are too complex to be processed only by classical statistical methods. Techniques like spatiotemporal clustering are capable of extracting homogeneous groups of objects while visualization methods allow exploring interactively these groups. On these bases, the 3 objectives of the PICOPATT project are the following: 1) to produce a methodology for the analysis of urban picoclimatic conditions based on mobile measurement, data mining and visualization; 2) to deduce picoclimatic patterns in different urban fabrics from the collected data and to test them against the perceptions and uses of city dwellers in order to establish a typology of urban picoclimates; and 3) to transform this knowledge into operational tools for promoting the adaptation of cities to climate change. These 3 objectives define the 4 main tasks of the project. Task T1 will aim to design and implement a mobile climate measurement campaign over one year in Nantes and Montpellier. Original climatic carts developed by the project’s partners will be used to collect data over 6 urban paths in both cities with 4 passages per day every 10 days. Task T2 will aim to develop data mining and visualization tools adapted to the data collected in T1 and to identify picoclimatic patterns. Spatiotemporal clustering methods and visualization tools will be implemented. Task T3 will aim to validate an urban picoclimates typology from the patterns identified in the previous task using in situ passive observations, commented walks and interviews. The patterns will be confronted with real situations to establish their validity and characterize them in terms of climatic experience. Task T4 will aim to design guidelines for making research results usable by urban professionals. It will implement workshops with professionals in the two cities (local authorities, design offices, architects, urban planners, landscape architects). Besides, a transversal task T0 will ensure the coordination of the partners and the follow-up of the work, the management of the project, the communication and the valorisation of the results. PICOPATT will provide conceptual, numerical and technological tools, as well as large-scale unpublished datasets to better understand the complexity of the urban climate experience. In the field of urban planning, it will contribute to the solutions by which urban territories will be able to face environmental challenges and more specifically the adaptations of public spaces to the consequences of climate change. In the field of data science, it will contribute to the production of data mining codes and reusable visualization prototypes for the analysis of spatiotemporal data. Because it is based on a vast metrological campaign that will be very visible in public spaces, PICOPATT will strengthen the relations between science and society regarding contemporary climate issues.

Mobility and transport play crucial roles in achieving sustainable development goals. The mobility transition strategy in Europe has shifted the way that people move in their daily life towards low-carbon emission solutions. An increasing number of urban soft mobility has emerged, from e-scooters, e-bikes to self-balancing scooters or even self-driving bicycles. More and more users choose soft mobility as an alternative to replace single-occupied vehicles or for last-mile solutions. Soft mobility is no doubt a green and affordable mobility mode, which contributes to less congestion, less carbon emission and less noise in the city. But the users of soft mobility are vulnerable compared to other transport users, whose accidents can be easily fatal once happened. On the other side, more and more intelligent connected wearables have emerged with various embedded position-based applications. They are no longer limited to entertainment utilities but have already been extended to critical use cases such as guidance of visually impaired people, insuring users based on soft mobility behaviors, etc. This provides no doubt the possibility of more intelligent positioning guidance services by integrating safety functionalities for vulnerable road users. The objective of this project is to add safety control in a new reliable positioning algorithm based on multisensor fusion for soft mobility users. Two safety functionalities will be added to the location-based applications: i) automatically detect, exclude or repair the faulty measurements from multi-sensors; ii) estimate an uncertainty indicator to bound the positioning errors. In case the estimated positioning error bound is bigger than the minimum tolerable positioning error, a timely warning alarm will be sent to the users. This will enhance the safety of vulnerable road users via connected wearable positioning devices for safety-critical or reliable-critical applications.