Le paysage comme matrice de la fabrique du territoire : Buenos Aires Genève Bruxelles Transposition(s)

The thesis adresses the phenomenon of the city-archipelago by its landscapes. It proposes a project methodology, called transposition, which aims at the (re) connection of the anthropic and natural elements of the territorial fabric. This proposal emerges from several field experiments nurtured by a theoretical journey. Explorations along rivers in the Delta del Tigre in Buenos Aires, Geneva, and the Senne valley in Brussels, question the landscape as a system of nature and culture, and as a project. Three elements of posture animate this approach. The first is "médiance", the existential relation between man and the environment, which founds the landscape in societal value. The second is the idea of the coevolution between natural environment and human settlements which becomes, from the perspective of "médiance", the horizon of the project. The third is the urbanistic narrative of inversion, which considers open spaces as a fundamental material of urbanism. Transposition opens new perspectives to this posture. It mobilizes the landscape as a matrix: a substratum that contains the material and immaterial constructive elements of the territorial fabric, and an organizing principle to reactivate their potential for "médiance". In operational terms, transposition involves the creative management of open structures as well as transdisciplinary and intersectoral project engineering.