AHA designed and organized the study trip of IDHEAL’s first graduating class to Bordeaux. Slowly but surely, the city’s reclamation of its riverbanks and waterfront, launched under Alain Juppé in 1995, has had an impact as powerful as a local “Bilbao effect.” Twenty-five years later, the green shift marked by the victory of the Ecologists in the 2020 municipal elections seems poised to temper the million-strong ambitions once projected for the metropolis — now home to about 800,000 residents, growing by nearly 10,000 each year. The new mayor, Pierre Hurmic, champions the concept of “frugal urbanism”, embodied in a “Bio P.L.U.” (local urban plan) developed by his deputy for urban planning, Bernard Blanc. This deliberate turn toward a city whose outlines are still being drawn made us want to understand if and how such a paradigm shift is possible — and how thinking about housing fits into broader reflections on the territorial economy. That is why we chose Bordeaux as the destination for the first IDHEAL study trip. separately as captions for individual images or continuously, like a form of live subtitling. Renewal is not a new idea: it inspired the very construction of many of these neighborhoods — later criticized, sometimes demolished. But today, the renewal that seems most urgent is that of our mindset and our viewpoint towards these places that remain “new” and that continue to challenge Europe’s ingrained affection for the “historic city.” Let us hope this book contributes to that renewal, as it did to a truly human adventure for its authors, carried out with the rigorous trust of the 3F Group.
Trip and booklet conceived by AHA ( Annabelle Hagmann, Ourania Vivien) pour IDHEAL I
