Thesis defense – Sonia DINH - Géographie-cités

Designing shared facilities in private collective housing : perspectives from the practices and strategies of urban and real estate development professionals

Sonia DINH (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne / Géographie-cités) will defend her doctoral thesis prepared at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, the École Doctorale de Géographie de Paris (ED434) and the Géographie-cités laboratory (UMR 8504) under the supervision of Sylvie Fol, Professor at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Marie-Pierre Lefeuvre, Professor at the Université de Tours

Thursday, July 10
at 2 pm
Salle 50
Centre des Colloques
Campus Condorcet
Place du Front Populaire
93 322 Aubervilliers Cedex

Jury

Loïc Bonneval, Associate Professor, Université Lumière Lyon 2
Eric Denis, CNRS Research Director
Sylvie Fol, Full Professor, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Marie-Pierre Lefeuvre, Full Professor, Université de Tours
Romain Melot, Research Director, INRAE
Julie Pollard, Senior Lecturer, University of Lausanne
Flore Trautmann, Co-director, Le Sens de la Ville
Jodelle Zetlaoui-Léger, Full Professor, ENSA Paris La Villette

Abstract

Integrated facilities in Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse, residential common areas in the 1960s or shared spaces in collaborative housing are all examples of common spaces integrated into collective housing. At a time when housing produced by private developers is being criticized for its poor quality (reduced common areas, small unit sizes, lower ceiling heights), this thesis analyzes the renewed interest in so-called “shared” spaces. Based on an ethnographic study carried out within an urban planning consultancy firm, these “shared spaces” – communal vegetable gardens, guest rooms or common areas – are analyzed as a category of action of urban and real estate professionals.

After objectifying and defining this category as a new type of spatial device, between optimization through pooling and attention to collective dynamics, this thesis examines the implementation of these spaces, based on two case studies in Nantes and La Rochelle. The genesis of “shared spaces” lies at the convergence of public demand from public developers, in the context publicly-led urban projects, and the strategies of real estate developers. An analysis of the design of “shared spaces” and the anticipation of their management reveals the existence of a specialized engineering (consultants, private intermediaries). In this way, “shared spaces” provide the basis for new activities, real estate products and services. This thesis also points out the effects of professional injunctions on the ordinary functioning of collective housing and the city, and on resident practices, between empowerment and work. The thesis shows how participatory logics, set out as a common objective, are disseminated, and how managerial and entrepreneurial logics are supported and articulated, at different scales.