Town planning

Capabilites: urban planning, environmental urban design, site surveying, landscape design, intermodal transport, analysis, civil engineering

The mobility requirement
The contemporary urban setting that has emerged from the in-depth changes started a century ago by the irruption of mechanised transport in the urban fabric, and is currently seeing a new revolution in movement: a form of elective, efficient and user-friendly mobility. When citizens adopt a lifestyle in which travelling is part of everyday reality, they want that travelling time to be real quality time that is both useful and pleasant. At the scale of large territories such as that of the town, the project will build in this need for mobility and movement in an approach that characterises AREP philosophy and know-how.

Strategic choices
The large-scale territory is apprehended in terms of strategic scenarios and development potential. The questioning focuses on the organisation of the "post-Kyoto" metropolis, changes in the urban fabric and in emerging countries, concerning the transformation of rural or natural spaces into "urbanised" space.

Assisting the agents
At the scale of the town or neighbourhood, studies range from programming and defining the urban format, including work on improving land use, packaging developments and modus operandi. They include local agents and connect the design to methodological choices that seek to support action over the long-term tending towards a durable organisation of space.

Long term
While of different types and scope, projects are organised with the long view that underpins AREP’s doctrine. Its engineering skills are mobilised to organise the urban metabolism via its networks and amenities (sewage disposal, energy, transport, etc.) and to facilitate subsequent developments. As the city is by definition a locus for exchange, the quality of urban spatial organisation is notably measured by the ability to multiply and intensify links and contacts with an ever greater economy of means and environmental impacts in order to safeguard the future.