2024
The Responsible City
This project aims to understand how cities respond to socio-ecological controversies in housing. Based on an analysis of the most prominent housing controversies in two Swiss cities (Geneva and Zurich) we ask: What competing grammars of responsibility guide socio-ecological controversies in housing, how are they put into action and shape the urban fabric, and how can they be transformed into a politics of transition?
Period: 2024-2028
Project director / coordinator : Vincent Kaufmann, Luca Pattaroni, Hanna Hilbrandt (UZH)
LASUR team: Maxime Felder, Léo Brumm
Funding/Consortium: SNSF
WinWin4WorkLife
WinWin4Worklife envisions to enable healthy, inclusive and sustainable remote working arrangements (RWA) in Europe by combining employer and employee perspectives into a single framework. The project has five key objectives and outcomes:
1) To gain an interdisciplinary understanding of how the private and work spheres interact when working remotely
2) To assess which living and working conditions ensure a healthy work-life balance in RWA for both men and women living in urban, rural, and cross-border areas;
3) To develop forecasting models of the impacts of different scenarios of RWA on mobility, land use, air quality, noise, and health;
4) To enhance knowledge on the role of culture, regional context and welfare systems in the uptake of RWA by employees and employers; and
5) To develop a comprehensive set of evidence-based spatial policies for a sustainable implementation of RWA, based on co-creation processes with stakeholders and citizens.
To do so, WinWin4WorkLife will collect novel and comprehensive data in 5 European countries (DE, FI, LU, PT, SK), selected to represent different welfare systems, housing and labour markets, and cultural norms towards remote work. Data collection consists of an employer survey focused on organizational support for RWA, impacts on skills retention and productivity, and intentions to relocate; and an employee survey complemented by interviews and a time use app covering employee circumstances, gendered RWA experiences, impacts on work-life balance and mental health, as well as residential or job relocation, and social security and taxation issues. This quantitative and qualitative data will feed custom-made spatial forecasting models to assess wider urban/rural regeneration, environmental and health impacts. Close and continuous engagement with planning, policy, business, and institutional stakeholders will ensure concrete and context-sensitive policy actions and measures for the sustainable uptake of RWA in Europe.
Period: 2024-2028
Project director / coordinator : Guillaume Drevon, Véronique Van Acker (LISER)
LASUR team: Vincent Kaufmann, Sofía González Jiménez
Funding/Consortium: European Union, program Horizon Europe
Hubs2connect
The reduction in energy consumption and the transition to low/zero-emission mobility has been and will continue to be of utmost importance in Switzerland and abroad. The recent introduction of shared transport modes such as car- and micro-car-sharing, e-bike-sharing and e-scooter-sharing has raised new hopes, and combinations on the first/last mile together with public transport are being hypothesized. However, at present we do not know how intermodally these modes are actually be-ing used, and how the introduction of mobility hubs can increase the ac-ceptance of intermodal trips. The introduction of mobility hubs in Geneva offers a unique opportunity to study these questions empirically. We pro-pose a rigorous mixed methods study that will yield high-quality data from in-depth interviews, surveys and GPS tracking applications. Results from our study will substantially advance transport planning practice as well as the academic and policy discourse and hence advance societies on their path towards low/zero-emission mobility.
Period: 2024-2027
Project director / coordinator: Vincent Kaufmann, Daniel Reck (TPG), Emmanuel Ravalet (B-MH)
LASUR team: Eloi Bernier, Léo Brumm, Clément Rames, Marc-Edouard Schultheiss
Funding / mandator: Swiss Federal Office of Energy
Transiter
TRANSITER supports the TRANSition of TERritories and lifestyles in Luxembourg. The TRANSITER observatory in Luxembourg assesses the social acceptability of decarbonization and resilience measures. Through citizen engagement and dialogue with relevant stakeholders, it gathers and refines policy proposals to overcome implementation difficulties. Drawing on diverse methodologies, including a smartphone app for evaluation, TRANSITER is poised to offer new insights into policy acceptability, which could influence future research into environmental policy evaluation. TRANSITER is funded by Luxembourg’s Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Biodiversity through the Climate and Energy Fund, as well as by the Ministry of Housing and Spatial Planning.
Period: 2024-2027
Project director / coordinator: Guillaume Drevon, Umberto Sconfienza (LISER)
LASUR team: Lucie Palanché, Vincent Kaufmann
Funding / mandator: Luxemburg’s government
2023
Towards considering the potential for sustainable mobility and travel time satisfaction
In the global context of measures to reduce car use, which have not decreased as much as planned since the 1990s in Europe, this thesis aims to provide original insights into the possibilities for modal shift while considering the associated social issues.
Based on the Région Lémanique (a cross-border area surrounding Lake Geneva), we assessed an overall modal shift potential in the two first sections, accouting for two assessments: (i) a mobility potential one, combining accessibility to a diversity of activities reacheable by alternative modes of transport to the car close to one’s residence, and the motility of respondents, i.e. their ability to move to these activities using these alternative modes (AMs); (ii) a travel time satisfaction one, highlting the travel modes and trips potentials to experience satisfaction when moving with AMs.
The third section of the thesis focuses on the actual mobility patterns of respondents, as observed through three weeks of GPS tracking of their travels. We analysed the mobility patterns by demonstrating the significance of modal shift potential indicators (i.e., mobility and travel time satisfaction potentials) in better explaining their mobility-related carbon footprint.
Accounting for motility in addition to accessibility, and travel time satisfaction possibilities when using AMs, enables establishing priorities from a policymakers perspective in order to strengthen: (i) AMs and activities provision (where accessibility is poor) and transport networks that enable better travel time satisfaction when using these AMs; (ii) and the individuals’ motility, ensuring an effortlessly and satisying AMs use.
Period: 2023-2027
Project director/coordinator: Vincent Kaufmann
LASUR team: Jules Grandvillemin
Funding / mandator: Modus
Perceived insecurity as a factor in the exclusion from public space
The proposed research focuses on the perception of insecurity at night. It adopts a comprehensive approach that takes into account both the spatial and social dimensions of urban life. This project emerges from the tension between two scientifically established findings: (1) processes of exclusion occur in public spaces at night and are commonly associated with the feeling of insecurity experienced by certain social groups when they occupy these spaces; and (2) urban energy transition policies often include environmental measures, such as the reduction of public lighting, which may affect the perceived safety of some social minorities. The social dimension of this spatial transformation remains difficult to grasp.
The aim of this thesis is to identify potential public measures to ensure an inclusive city at night. This research will provide both a scientific and operational reflection on the perception of insecurity in nighttime public spaces, examined through the intersection of social practices in nighttime public space, collective representations of it, and its materiality. The results of this study will contribute to promoting a more inclusive city through the development of public measures informing local urban policies.
Period: 2023-2027
Project director / coordinator: Chloé Montavon
LaSUR team: Chloé Montavon
Funding/mandator: Doc.CH – FNS
Local: Lifestyles and CarbOn emissions in the Arc Lemanique territory
The LOCAL project aims to (1) quantify the energy and carbon footprints associated with household lifestyles in the Lake Geneva region, and (2) identify the determinants of high and low carbon household consumption. All analyses are based on Panel Lémanique data.
Period: 2023-2025
Projet director / coordinator: Claudia Binder (HERUS EPFL), Vincent Kaufmann, Julia Steinberger (UniL)
LASUR team: Guillaume Drevon
Partnership: UniL – Faculty of environnemental and geosciences
Funding / mandator: Cross UniL EPFL program
2022
Lake Geneva Sustainability Monitoring Panel
In order to be able to conduct cutting-edge research on the transition of lifestyles, the the ENAC faculty at EPFL has launched a 5-year panel survey.
The aim of this survey is to measure the evolution of behaviors, uses and
opinions on lifestyles in the manner of an observatory. The panel will be perennial and composed of a representative sample of the population of the Lake Geneva region who agree to regularly respond to surveys (one major survey per year and 2-3 other targeted surveys). The panel is part of the deployment of the ENAC “Sustainable Territories” research cluster and constitutes an infrastructure that ENAC faculty puts at the service of its laboratories and researchers in order to develop interdisciplinary research.
The panel covers the Lake Geneva area, it will therefore cover the cantons of Geneva and Vaud, as well as the Bas Valais, the Pays de Gex, the Chablais and the French Genevois.
Period: 2022-2027
Project director / coordinator : Vincent Kaufmann
LASUR team: Guillaume Drevon, Florian Masse, Elisa Tirindelli
Funding/Consortium: ENAC Faculty, Canton of Geneva, Canton of Vaud
2021
Difference-Oriented Urban Planning (Diff_Urb)
Cities have multiple inhabitants and uses, and it is increasingly important to integrate them into urban planning. Taking into account differences in living conditions and spatial/temporal uses often relies on a single characteristic understanding, ie income, analysis of certain spaces or a particular time of day.
Integrating and recognizing the differences between the inhabitants of a city, while promoting living together, is a crucial issue for the making of cities. To face this challenge, decision-makers must adapt the urban space and implement policies that promote inclusion within a plural society.
This project, involving sociologists, political scientists, urban planners, architects and civil engineers at EPFL, the University of Geneva and ETHZ, has received a “SINERGIA” funding of 2.2 million francs from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
The research consists of a comparative investigation in Geneva, Brussels, Hamburg and Turin, which have different ways of addressing urban planning. It seeks to analyze and describe the mechanisms and laws in place in these large European cities, the infrastructural support on which they rely, and the corresponding feelings of the inhabitants.
Period : 2021 – 2025
Project director / coordinator : Vincent Kaufmann, Sandro Cattacin (UniGE), Adrienne Grêt-Regamey (ETHZ)
LASUR team : Guillaume Drevon, Nathalie Fanzy, Florian Masse, Yves Pedrazzini, Sanja Platisa
Funding / mandator : FNRS SINERGIA Program
Transit Oriented Development for Inclusive and Sustainable Rural-Urban Regions. TOD-IS-RUR
The 9 Beneficiaries and 12 Partner Organisations create a unique platform for 10 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs), providing interdisciplinary and intersectoral expert-level training to analyserural-urban place-making and develop novel, context-based planning schemes for rural-urban regions (RURs). The aim of the network is to extend the concept of Transit-Oriented Development to RURs with a context-based approach, in which mobility-urbanisation interactions are studied in relation to socio-environmental qualities.
Drawing on a wide-range of European RURs and bringing in expertise from urban studies, research and training transcends disciplinary and national fragmentation, preparing a new generation of highly-skilled professionals able to meet the challenge of countering sprawl in the spatial contexts where most Europeans live, and implement inclusive and sustainable planning schemes for RURs.
Period : 2021 – 2025
Project director / coordinator : Vincent Kaufmann, Paola Viganò (LAB-U), Caroline Gallez (LVMT)
LASUR team : Maya El Khawand, Flore Guichot
Funding / mandator : EU Framework Programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Innovative Training Network (ITN)