Workshop organized by the Urban Systems Engineering Department of the Compiègne University of Technology, 25-26 may 2010.
World increasing urbanization, pressure on energy saving and questionings about the climatic heating have transformed the city into a physical problem of major concern.
At the furthest point of this process, the architects have to follow building norms whose justifi cations are not only the immediate fulfi llment of the clients’ needs but also the general benefi t of the humankind, i.e. in terms of greenhouse gas emission. However it is difficult to quantify these requirements in a dense and complex built environment.
As a multi-physic and multi-scale system interacting with soil and atmosphere, the city remains a rather unknown object. The necessity for a multidisciplinary and systemic approach related to specialties as different as meteorology, geography, architecture and urban systems engineering will be made obvious in this workshop throughout the single problem of solar radiation.
The goal is to examine this issue as a whole, from the climatic data to the urban development strategies, showing how the new tools (second generation satellites, very large geometric models and technological improvement in the data acquisition) can be integrated in a course of action that will allow to obtain better quantifi cation and control in order to transmit the useful information between the actors at macro (territory), meso (city) and micro (building) scales. These actors will so get the opportunity to better collaborate in the perspective of a sustainable and more hospitable city.
