Mediterranean coastal metropolis, climate challenges and resilient solutions Erasmus Project

Project Title

Mediterranean coastal metropolis, climate challenges and resilient solutions

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Reaching the policy level/dialogue with decision makers

Project Summary

The conclusions of the first scientific report on climate and environmental change in the Mediterranean region, presented at the UfM Regional Forum on October 10, 2019 in Barcelona, ​​tell us that the Mediterranean area is warming 20% ​​faster than the rest of the world. However, today there is no specific training from architecture schools on the impact of global warming and its effects on metropolitan areas on the Mediterranean coast. The question today is much more focused on the architectural object than on the territorial and urban approach. We therefore propose to address the resilience of territories of metropolitan areas on the Mediterranean coast through three case studies: the Tangier-Tetouan region, the Venice lagoon and the heart of the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis. We want to develop our teaching methods through workshops that pave the way for tailor-made solutions and enriched by the multiplier effect of the crossing of skills and methods of the teachers participating in this project.

The four partners of this project are higher schools of architecture teaching architecture and urban design on the Mediterranean site and which wish to bring together their knowledge and their interest in the Mediterranean area. The ENSA Marseille is the leader of this project, conducted with the ULB in Brussels, the National School of Architecture of Tétouan in Morocco and the IUAV in Venice, they are both very involved in their respective territories. The Agency for Sustainable Mediterranean Cities and Territories (AVITEM) has joined forces with the group to provide insight and articulation towards the socio-professional world.

The teaching and training actions take place over three years, each academic year will be dedicated to one metropolitain situation and will allow us to cross our teachings and working methods, both for the knowledge of the sites and for the hypotheses of solutions resilient to climate change. We wish to renew the ways of approaching development by renewing working and teaching methods on three axes, by crossing our respective workshop practices with moments of intensive meetings on site twice a year. The progression will be made by a round trip between our workshops, in our schools and with our teaching methods, and collective crossings on site.
First of all by building in the workshop the knowledge on these territories by collaborative cartographic tools, which will then be measured in a second time with the reality during the in site immersions through intensive collective workshops. Finally it will be a question of exchanging and crossing our visions and our work in the following semester, during the “return” meeting on site, to produce hypotheses of resilient projects for these coastal metropolises.

Each of these phases gives rise to a prior intellectual production which serves both as a training guide for cartographic representation (atlas), intensive field lessons (workshop) and multi-scalar resilience projects. They are tested during long semester times and during short periods of one week intensive. The students’ productions come to extend and enrich these supports by the crossed and collaborative productions, not only in the practice of the group project, but also by the individual works which will come to feed the wiki database.

The multiplicity of media is directed to different audiences, both academics (teachers, students, and even researchers) and the professional world. This articulation between university and socio-professional environment is conducive to the renewal of practices and the strengthening of the potential employability of the students. And finally we transfer these methods to the world of planning professionals in the form of a distance learning module.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 403248 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Marseille & Country: FR

Project Partners

• GIP AGENCE FRANCAISE POUR DES VILLES ET TERRITOIRES MEDITERRANEENS DURABLES
• UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES
• UNIVERSITA IUAV DI VENEZIA
• Ecole Nationale d’Architecture de Tétouan
• Ecole Nationale d’Architecture de Rabat