TIDAL FORCES:
IN SEARCH OF 'COMMON GROUNDS' BETWEEN URBAN AND SUBURBAN PARIS
Pari Riahi, Critic, INTAR
Jacqueline Zhao (BARCH 2015)
Purpose/Objective
By defining the ‘ground’ as primary element that holds both the formed structure of the city of Paris and the shifting terrains of public housing projects in the suburbs, the project is in search of forces that make the exchange between the two worlds more synchronous. The suburbs which are populated by highly concentrated masses of social housing resist change at a large scale. However the vast and unformed ground that sorrounds them is open to scrutiny.
The project started with research on existing written and visual sources that relate to the suburbs of Paris, social housing and issues of open, common, and public ground. We soon came to conclusion that any study of the notion of ground is tightly bound to that of the built environment that surrounds it.
Methods
Investigating both written and extensive visual resources of different forms, the research organizes the materials, both existing and projected into narratives of different forms. Identifying themes that define the suburban built environment, and moving into a series of suburbs, neighborhoods, and ultimately sites, the project proposes alternative lives for the forgotten, weary and underused ground that surrounds these suburbs.
By identifying three suburbs in the North and North-east of Paris, we conducted further analysis of the potential sites of operations for these suburbs. Eventually we moved further in by concentrating our studies on specific areas/ neighborhood, all of which are surrounded by Social Housing projects. Identifying sites within these areas, we demonstrated how through a series of operations, we are able to refocus on these potential sites in order to make them belong better to their environment.
Results
The research is compounded into a book that investigates the subject at multiple scales, organizes the evidence at hand through manifold narratives and offers possible scenarios to re-occupy the ground tin the suburbs of Paris.
Prior to obtaining the Bridge Grant, this research had run two parallel tracks: my own writing on the subject with published articles as a result, as well as a more collective mode of research and inquiry in the format of an advanced studio taught at INTAR. The bridge grant allowed me to fuse the more academic approach with the one that is more speculative (project based) . I will be looking into the possibility of getting the work to published, and searching for alternative modes of advancing this work in multidisciplinary formats concurrently.
Conclusions
The ongoing research has evolved and tested multiple vehicles of expression. Since the subject matter is complex and multi-layered, finding ways to address it with the same degree of complexity has been the primary concern of the project.
While the proposal investigates the disjunction of the urban and suburban worlds in Paris, its larger aim is to transcend specific geographical references, since the clustering of poor neighborhoods and the invisible walls that surround them are part of a global condition that resonate with numerous geographies and temporalities. Focusing on Paris has merits since it epitomizes the visible and invisible barriers between the city and the suburbs by the well-defined form of the Hussmanian city, the existence of the Péripherique, and the high concentration of social housing in different intensities around the well-formed center.
The present book demonstrates that the inquiry for proper form, scale, function of operations in the suburbs to make the ground more valuable, properly inhabited and integrated in one’s understanding of the built environment, is a complex program that should be tackled from many different angles. The format has evolved many times and we have aspired to present these complexities by expanding our own understanding and testing different modes of presentation and drawing.