Convergence of Noise, Climate, Air and Energy actions for an efficient planning: how to act on urban and architectural forms?

Abstract

While the nature of road traffic and weather conditions remain the main determinants of air pollution and noise in cities, urban design and architectural forms are parameters that planners can play with to combine protection against noise, adaptation to climate change, air quality and energy management. But optimizing urban and architectural forms is not an easy task, because multiple factors are at work, particularly three-dimensional ones, which are sometimes contradictory. Orientation and height of buildings, continuity (or discontinuity) of the built front, layout and distance of buildings from the source of nuisance, urban vegetation, internal design of housing and architectural details, are all levers that can be used to reduce the impacts on the resident population. In order to establish a hierarchy between the different problems, we propose a structuring method to help objectify the priorities. It consists, for each of these influential parameters, in making an inventory of the potential gains and the points of vigilance with regard to noise, air pollution, urban overheating and energy savings and sufficiency. A number of French cities, including the city of Bordeaux, have experimented this approach to plan development projects for highly environmentally ambitious neighborhoods.