Projects in synergy. Forging a new post-carbon identity for the TOVAL community

This study follows on from a commission on the part of the Touraine Ouest Val de Loire (TOVAL) community of municipalities, located between Tours and Angers, and Mission Val de Loire. It sets out to unveil and enhance the area's potential with a view to boosting its appeal and resilience, while at the same time negotiating the terms of its energy transition between now and 2050.

An analysis of the landscape assets and characteristics of TOVAL has shed light on the geographic, economic, political, social and cultural workings of this community. Further, the authors of this study have drawn up their proposal on the basis of the three main landscape units identified — the Bassin Savignéen, Croissant boisée and Val de Loire. The study gave concrete form to the search for possible desirable forms for TOVAL in the future.  

The area's current situation – fragmented and isolated – stems from the paradigm focusing on progress, and exemplifies what is known as the Anthropocene. A paradigm shift is now called for, so as to devise a resilient residential blueprint for the area. The notion of complexity must once again be borne in mind, so as to perceive the site as an overall system to be understood and coordinated. 

Three scenarios of TOVAL's post-carbon transformation have particularly been developed, on an experimental basis, to illustrate one "possibility": a community enterprise hub in Savigné-sur-Lathan, a productive estate in Château-la-Vallière and a post-carbon wine-making pilot in Benais. Each pilot, rooted within its landscape unit, will make the most of the local characteristics whilst probing more particularly a specific issue associated with greenhouse gas emissions — mobility, industry and agriculture — to provide a forward-looking, yet attainable vision of a post-carbon TOVAL.  

On the web:

https://paris-est.archi.fr/publications/cahier-du-dpea