This Town Did The Impossible

this time the the impossible it was able to transform itself from a gloomy dispirited Town dominated by decaying concrete Flats into a thriving friendly and beautiful community but how in this video you will hear a story about the municipality near Paris that was set up with all the ingredients of becoming a dread for banglier but instead dreamed up very different future for itself with the help of a steadfast major a couple of visionary Architects and share will at the end of this video I will also list seven critical success factors that led to the success

of this place let's Dive Right In it's June 2022 I'm on my way to the station to catch a high-speed train it's only three and a half hours before I reach my destination the City of Lights Paris [Music] but this is no holiday I'm visiting the international making City's livable Congress which is being held in a town on the border of Paris specifically chosen for its unique history that town is Le plessis Robinson this municipality is home to around 30 000 inhabitants we walk at Center you might not notice what is so special about this

place it looks like a perfectly ordinary Charming French town until you learn that everything you see is recently built and the result of the ongoing efforts of one steadfast major two brilliant succeeding Architects and an extensive social program this small village appears in records first in 839 under the name of plesiakis it is known as plessis Raul and later the sea began it is 1908 when the village name is changed to Le plessis Robinson as the District of Robinson rises in importance due to its gingettes or popular drinking establishments near Paris in that time until

the first world war the place is only a small village of around 550 inhabitants from 1924 to 1939 the town develops a couple of garden cities based on the English model then after World War II the local Communist Party wins the elections and becomes the ruling party of lupusi Robinson for over 40 years during those years the town is further expanded with a modernist Urban scheme there is a lot of social housing but the concentration of marginalized groups has its toll the town becomes more Sinister filled with rubbish petty crime and poverty at some point

two-thirds of the buildings are in a bad State they are energy inefficient vandalized and badly maintained companies are closing down and prob related to Poverty are rising in 1989 Le plessis Robinson is about to become one of Bear's problematic blindly ears only a miracle can possibly prevent this town's further slide into decay and boy does a miracle happen the election of 1989 changes everything philippec a local politician belonging to the party Republica wins the election he promptly sets out to regenerate the municipality in doing so he takes an unconventional method to beautify the city and

to improve the town on all fronts instead of the harsh brutal and gray blocks that dominate the city amazec wants a type of architecture that people can connect with instead of gray concrete there would be color the town would have a vibrant mixture center with Lively streets creating more jobs by planning commercial spaces for local businesses but also offering the piece of beautiful Parks Gardens and fountains Le plessis Robinson would have a soul again but music attracts Francois porgi as main architect who designs a master plan sporri is also the supervisor who tests all the

designs made by other architects in this case only traditional and classical Architects are attracted which is rare they refer to the architecture they want to use as architecturus soft architecture as opposed to the Stark blocks that dominate the town at that moment the plan is based on new urbanism which is itself in a way a reinvention of the planning and Architectural Traditions that have shaped the most livable attractive Urban places we all know and love only adapted to current users and needs to accomplish the plans some inhabitants need to be re-humped enough new social housing

has to be developed in order to replace the apartments in the old decade buildings owner-occupied homes are introduced as well to achieve a greater more natural mix in Social and income classes also a program is introduced to give social housing tenants the chance to become a homeowner by offering them to buy a new home under favorable terms this is all done because at that point the housing supply of Le plessis Robinson consists of 72 social housing these extremely high concentrations of social housing in one location are often not sustainable and have been linked to various

social and economic problems I know that many of you already wonder but isn't this just gentrification that's an important issue to address and I will do so later on in the video with those plans in order they first construct a new town center with a mixture of Apartments shops and squares this ker DeVille is completed around the year 2000. the next step is the Redevelopment of some of the garden cities of the 1920s and 30s but these are historic landmarks approvals needed by the Chief Architect of batima de France an organization that enforces many laws

codified in the Heritage code the Chief Architect Joseph Bellmore resides that the Garden City will be rehabilitated instead of demolished the project starts but soon sees massive cost overruns and soon called the most expensive rehabilitation in France some blocks are constructed by Aluma madhui Architects you can clearly see how these are different from the plants developed by sporty in a way they emulate the Grim post-war blocks with their concrete facades and Stark Square design financial problems stopped this project from continuing on the same foot a competition is organized and architect is a Vie ball Vincent

tender to design a part of the town in the spirit of spori this new plan for the Garden City offers a lush Meandering strip of parks dominated by a river ecosystem of one kilometer in length or 0.6 miles this river is a complete ecosystem filled with many fish and water Birds plants and insects ecologists help design it to improve the biodiversity of the town the river ecosystem is surrounded by classically designed apartment buildings in the style of Il de France even though there is a lot of urban green the Garden City is still dense when

you turn a corner you go from a peaceful green Oasis to a vibrant City Center with many shops and services with slow traffic roads friendly for pedestrians and cyclists the plan was successfully finished in 2009 in the heart of the plan is a culture center with a theater cinema spaces for exhibitions and music studios also the Old Market gets a modernized more beautiful building so what were the Urban Design principles for creating this Garden City they were a readable easily understandable and hierarchical urban plan an abundance of Rich nature car traffic at the edges of

the neighborhoods classical architecture that fits in il de France and a mixed housing Supply fast forward to today and the town is doing amazing young families raise their children Shoppers buy fresh vegetables in a Market Hall go to the cultural center to see a film or play employment in the town has risen by 50 percent the transformation of Le plessis Robinson doesn't go unnoticed it wins a number of prizes including those for best urban renewal operation in a suburban area and it doesn't stop there new parts are already under construction the success of Le plessis

Robinson and Xavier Ball's work has even sparked similar redevelopments in other communities around Paris so let's move on to the seven lessons we can learn from this place but before moving on to the lessons I would like to ask for your support by liking this video and subscribing if you enjoyed it so far of course alright let's look at the lessons lesson one long-term fishing is key this plan was not the result of just a couple of profit-hungry developers deciding to build some apartments no this was a huge long-term effort by driven mayor an architect

with a vision and other stakeholders you need someone with a long-term interest in the place with skin in the game in this case it was the mayor in other cases it might be an investor or a landowner lesson 2 smart policies in order to renovate large parts of the Town into lower costs the municipality used public-private Partnerships to redevelop areas this lowered the risk for developers also the roads in right-of-way in some areas were leased by a private entity lesson 3 get the urban form right one of the most important things that was done in

Le plessis Robinson was the change of the urban fabric from blocks to streets the modernist Tower in the park design is good for one thing only to offer a lot of light air and space but it does come with some big disadvantages these apartment blocks are surrounded by a lot of space that is not clearly public or private no one really feels responsible for the space so get loitering Youth and littering instead of having these semi-public spaces it is better to create a clear difference between private and public space streets squares and parks are clearly

Public Gardens and Courtyards are clearly private this was done in lip lazy Robinson as well also they did a wonderful thing by creating a combination of dense Urban Fabric and plenty of green so when you walk in the village you don't notice that you're actually in a high density area lesson 4 social housing can be beautiful one amazing thing about Le plessis romance only is that the quality of the social housing is so high that you can't even see that they are social housing from the outside but how did they do it they offset the

costs of the social houses with the Seal of upmarket homes to make this possible lesson five more than just a park the Garden City in Le plessis Robinson shows how Parks can be more than only grass and trees they created the true River ecosystem and boosted the biodiversity of the place enormously accessible for everyone because they built paths that lead through the area this connects nicely to the next Point lesson 6 the walkable City wins in this town shops and services are close enough so that people can walk or bike to fulfill their daily needs

it is a good example of the 15-minute City this walkability leads to many health benefits or social contacts and in general a more pleasant way of life the increased food traffic also enables small business owners shops and cafes to thrive making vibrant getting your morning paper and croissant is only a short walk away and finally lesson 7 Beauty does matter in my other video on beauty I covered what makes buildings beautiful from a neurological and evolutionary point of view the mayor of this town saw the importance of beauty as self-evident he started introducing Beauty by

planting flowers and then continued with the architecture clearly the mayor believes in a transformative power of beauty and as the town started to change people's perception of the place changed too slowly but surely the town became more pleasant which started to attract more business and increase people's attachment to the place all in all this case study teaches us a lot about how to create Pleasant Urban spaces and how it plays however hopeless it might seem can be turned into an attractive place to live it also shows that places with a pleasant Ambience the places people

crave and where they really like to live can be designed and made I want to stress how important this is because many people believe that this is somehow not possible that the pleasant aliens is just a given or random but the pleasantness of Le plessis Robinson was not random it was designed so was it all perfect then well of course not gentrification might have happened in lepsy Robinson after all there was a decline in social housing some of its original inhabitants moved out and the average income of the Town went up but as I told

the town shows for a different approach they focused on letting social housing tenants buy their homes even at the fraction of their market price they all got the offer and over 80 said yes but if I may I'd like to focus on a much overlooked Point here because this town did something very unusual yet very important they were not only focused on building massive quantities of social housing but approved another key thing that affordable housing can also be made attractive and beautiful but why should we care you may ask well I believe that beauty and

human dignity go hand in hand forcing those without any choice to live in ugly concrete boxes is unethical in my view because Beauty in my eyes uplifts inspires and gives hope and that is something everyone deserves perhaps other other towns will find a way to achieve higher percentages of social housing in beautiful Humane ways we do need to be realistic about the economic reality though there's always a catch finally a point about the mayor he has he has been controversial for several reasons I want to refrain from idolizing Mr pemasek as a savior or a

saint but still open music did was not easy at all it was awarded for his efforts with multiple re-elections so there you have it I look forward to read your comments below and I do expect some fireworks I hope you like this video but there is more content you might enjoy because what is it exactly that makes buildings beautiful and why is beauty really so important to learn about that you might like to see my next video don't forget to subscribe or you might miss what I had in stock for the next videos for behind

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