R-URBAN - participative strategy for development, practices and networks of local resilience

R-URBAN is a strategy of urban resilience in European cities involving the creation of a network of locally closed ecological cycles linking a series of fields of urban activities (i.e., economy, habitat, mobility, urban agriculture, culture) and using land reversibly.

r-urban.net

Flows, networks and cycles of production - consumption are formed across these fields, closing chains of need and supply as locally as possible, but also in as many and as diversified ways as possible. To overcome the current crisis, we must try, as A.Gorz states ‘to produce what we consume and consume what we produce’. R-URBAN interprets this chain of production - consumption broadly, well beyond the material aspect, including the cultural, cognitive and affective dimensions.

 

Circuits courts résilients à différentes échelles territoriales

 

The strategy explores as such alternatives to the current models of living, producing and consuming in cities, suburbs and rural areas. It draws on the active involvement of citizen in initiating collaborative practices and creating solidarity networks, closing cycles between production and consumption, operating changes in lifestyles, acting ecologically at the level of everyday life.

 

R-URBAN will be developed as a pilot project over a four-year period on a number of sites in Colombes, a city located in the northwestern suburbs of Paris. The project will gradually create a network around three Units, each with complementary urban functions, and will bring together emerging citizen projects in the logic of resilience.

 

Circuits courts écologiques-économiques-sociaux-culturels initiés à échelle locale et régionale

The three pilot Units include:

- a Recycling and Eco-construction Unit which consists of a number of facilities that will generate a series of changes in the daily habits of local residents and the urban administration in terms of recycling

- an Ecological Cooperative Housing Unit which consists of a number of experimental dwellings, partly self-built

- a Civic Agriculture Unit, which consist of a micro-farm aimed at collective and familial use

Pôle Ressourcerie et Plate-forme d'éco-construction (ESS)

 

Pôle Habitat Coopératif et écologique

 

Les trois pôles et les circuits courts résilients

 

The three pilot Units will function through locally closed cycles and be progressively linked with other urban facilities, contributing to an increase in the urban-resilience capacity (self-sufficiency, local production and local recycling, etc.).

By introducing the capacity of multiple productions (green productive spaces, active dwelling, local economy, etc.) R-Urban enables a more sustainable democracy, understood as a re-appropriation of commons.

The R-URBAN is supported by the EC Life+ program of environmental governance.

The project partners include aaa (co-ordinator), the City of Colombes and PublicWorks, London.

projets LIFE+

rhyzom/rurban