PhD

Beyond the infrastructure of ecological continuity, 
the living and nourishing landscape as a territorial project of the living
Cartographic and prospective explorations of Rennes and Greater Geneva 
 
A territorial project impelling biodiversity and socio-ecological transitions implies its renewal to which this thesis in landscape urbanism contributes. The recognition of the landscape as a support of biodiversity by landscape ecology led to the establishment of the tool of ecological continuity within territorial planning, updating the ecological and urbanistic co-design of the territory. This tool is now being reexamined through the concept of Socio-Ecological Systems, as well as in terms of implementation at local levels. Beyond the maintenance of biodiversity, it is a question of rethinking our relationship with the living, considering the synergies between biological diversity and human activities as the basis of the territorial project of the living.  Because the tool of ecological continuity has left aside the synergies with human practices, the hypothesis of this research is that the study of the fabric of the agricultural landscape, which highlights the tradition of the 'landscape of making', the taskscape, is revealing of contemporary prospective synergies. The agricultural landscape, resulting from synergies between ecological substrates and ancestral practices separated by modernity, embodies today the subject of the ecological transition of agriculture and food. These projects of territorial agroecological transition aim to create a living and nourishing landscape emerging from virtuous socio-ecological interactions, aiming at reconnecting man to the living through his food and his food production to the living.  To this end, this research observes the territories of Rennes and Geneva, both of which have a long tradition of experimenting with the design of ecological continuities on a territorial scale. The field study in Rennes revealed the levers used to create innovative landscapes, combining the creation - and not the conservation - of biodiversity and the transformation of agri-food practices. While the design research currently ongoing through transdisciplinary collaborations in Greater Geneva aims to explore analytical and prospective cartographies as well as prospective scenarios of nourishing, ensauvaged and microclimatic landscapes.