Paris

As with most major metropolitan regions, Paris is currently a few years into another long-range plan, this one titled: L’île de France de 2030, the Paris Regional Plan for 2030. The plan is broad, encompassing everything from freight logistics to specifying the building materials preferred for different construction types. The focus for 2030, from macro to micro, is sustainability: how can the region of Paris continue to be connected, continue to advance, and continue to be more accessible with the caveat of developing in only the most sustainable way possible [11]. In a fully developed city such as Paris, building sustainably often involves recycling, an idea Paris is embracing. Given an old viaduct, critics note the “real surprise of the recycled viaduct is the garden on top of it” (Figure 8) [15]. In Paris, even old slaughterhouses are reused, one was even rebuilt into an indoor/outdoor park for the “next generation” [15]. Developing hand in hand with the regional plan and its sustainable focus is a local prerogative by the mayor of Paris Proper: Anne Hidalgo, which is titled reinventer.paris. Reinventer.paris is a call for project designs from architects and urban designers around the world to create plans for sustainable development on existing problem sites in Paris, both above and below ground [12]. The sites, of which there are 23, are spaces like empty lots, aging and inaccessible metro stations, and areas under freeway infrastructure (Figure 6). A majority of the winning plans fully embrace green infrastructure: large windows, terraced gardens, hanging gardens, rooftop gardens, and copious amounts of natural light. Additionally, the government is pushing to reinvent Paris as a city built for new technology. Plans are being made to fully embrace telework by providing businesses a subsidy for allowing the option of teleworking [12]. Teleworking, or working from remote locations, could reduce the number of daily commuters significantly, and reduce the need for continued infrastructure expansion. This latest Parisian planning era exemplifies modernist tenants: truth to materials in buildings to include natural influence, increased accessibility with improved teleworking and the redesign of certain inaccessible metro stations, and even rethinking the idea of cars for the masses with car-share programs, and a focus on new technologies to benefit the masses.