Understanding past sensibility to grasp present architecture: the example of solar radiation

International audienceThis paper offers an understanding of how solar radiation acts on the various ways we organize our environment and conceive both architecture and urbanism. Our research seeks to put into perspective the various modalities by which exposure to the sun is expressed, present in discourse on architecture and urbanism since the mid-19th century. These forms of expression reveal the various uncertainties in our grasp of light and solar radiation over time – what we refer to as different "sensations of the sun" – and the consequences which these various sensibilities have had on the production of built forms. This gives rise to a history of architecture and urbanism in the sun, which is not an incantation to some supposedly "better" allowance for the sun in the production of buildings, rather an invitation to understand the various ways of reconciling human habitat with a natural element which exerts its physical and symbolic force on all of us

Construcciones ambientales en el hábitat moderno: Le Corbusier y André Missenard (1937-57)

International audienceSince the late-1930s, the emergence of a renewed cultural, technological and political approach towards the notion of climate reformulated the relationship between bodies and their milieux. This article analyses the works of Le Corbusier through the lens of this hypothesis of the hygienist paradigm’s evolution. Based on an original research at the archives of the Fondation Le Corbusier, this paper focuses on the theoretical discussions and the technical collaboration of the architect with André Missenard. This engineer, a key figure in the scientific, industrial and political environment of his time, played a main role to understand the relevance of the ambient dimension in Le Corbusier’s housing proposals in the 1950s. In particular, this paper deals with the design methods (Grille Climatique), as well as their spatial, technical and sensory materialization (Unités d'habitation and Maison du Brésil). The conclusions of the article show the evolution of Le Corbusier’s postulates, which beginning from his early proposal for the “Ville Radieuse”, managed to integrate the contributions of the “Science des climats artificiels” in architectural design looking for “Rétablir les conditions nature” in modern housing.Desde final de los años 30, la formulación de una nueva sensibilidad cultural, tecnológica y política hacia el clima, entendido en un sentido amplio, replanteó la relación entre el cuerpo humano y su entorno. El presente artículo confronta la obra de Le Corbusier ante dicha hipótesis de evolución del paradigma higienista previo. A partir de una investigación original en los archivos de la Fondation Le Corbusier, el objeto principal es el estudio de los intercambios teóricos y los aportes técnicos entre el arquitecto y André Missenard. El ingeniero, referente en el entorno científico, industrial y político de la época, resulta una pieza clave para entender la relevancia de la dimensión ambiental del hábitat propugnado por Le Corbusier durante los años 50. En particular, este trabajo aborda tanto los métodos de ideación (Grille Climatique) como su materialización espacial, técnica y sensorial (Unités d’habitation y Maison du Brésil). Las conclusiones del artículo muestran la evolución de los postulados habitacionales de Le Corbusier, que partiendo de la “Ville Radieuse”, acabó por integrar las ideas de la “Science des climats artificiels” en el proyecto arquitectónico, buscando “Rétablir les conditions nature” en el hábitat moderno

The Impact of Start-up Grants on Firm Performance in Estonia

As in economic theory start-up enterprises have been seen as important sources of growth, the government support measures to enterprises have been a common practice around the world for decades. As the governmental support to enterprises is often of a considerable amount of money there is a need to assess its efficiency. In the present article we study the impact of Estonian start-up grants distributed in 2002 and 2003 on various indicators of firm performance with econometric methods, namely propensity score matching. We use the data from the Estonian Business Register in order to study the impact of start-up grants on various economic indicators like the number of employees, turnover, equity, fixed assets and firm survival. The results showed that the start-up grants proved to affect positively the number of employed people and turnover, yet the impact on productivity was negative. One implication of the study is that it is difficult to achieve different goals to the same extent with a single governmental gran

Design of a Processor Optimized for Syntax Parsing in Video Decoders

8International audienceHeterogeneous platforms aim to offer both performance and flexibility by providing designers processors and programmable logical units on a single platform. Processors implemented on these platforms are usually soft-cores (e.g. Altera NIOS) or ASIC (e.g. ARM Cortex-A8). However, these processors still face limitations in terms of performance compared to full hardware designs in particular for real-time video decoding applications. We present in this paper an innovative approach to improve performance using both a processor optimized for the syntax parsing (an Application-Specific Instruction-set Processor) and a FPGA. The case study has been synthesized on a Xilinx FPGA at a frequency of 100MHz and we estimate the performance that could be obtained with an ASIC

Construcciones ambientales para el hábitat moderno: Le Corbusier y André Missenard (1937-57)

International audienceDesde final de los años 30, la formulación de una nueva sensibilidad cultural, tecnológica y política hacia el clima, entendido en un sentido amplio, replanteó la relación entre el cuerpo humano y su entorno. El presente artículo confronta la obra de Le Corbusier ante dicha hipótesis de evolución del paradigma higienista previo. A partir de una investigación original en los archivos de la Fondation Le Corbusier, el objeto principal es el estudio de los intercambios teóricos y los aportes técnicos entre el arquitecto y Andréissenard. El ingeniero, referente en el entorno científico, industrial y político de la época, resulta una pieza clave para entender la relevancia de la dimensión ambiental del hábitat propugnado por Le Corbusier durante los años 50. En particular, este trabajo aborda tanto los métodos de ideación (Grille Climatique) como su materialización espacial, técnica y sensorial (Unités d'habitation y Maison du Brésil). Las conclusiones del artículo muestran la evolución de los postulados habitacionales de Le Corbusier, que partiendo de la " Ville Radieuse " , acabó por integrar las ideas de la " Science des climats artificiels " en el proyecto arquitectónico, buscando " Rétablir les conditions nature " en el hábitat moderno. Abstract: Since the late-1930s, the emergence of a renewed cultural, technological and political approach towards the notion of climate reformulated the relationship between bodies and their milieux. This article analyses the works of Le Corbusier through the lens of this hypothesis of the hygienist paradigm's evolution. Based on an original research at the archives of the Fondation Le Corbusier, this paper focuses on the theoretical discussions and the technical collaboration of the architect with Andréissenard. This engineer, a key figure in the scientific, industrial and political environment of his time, played a main role to understand the relevance of the ambient dimension in Le Corbusier's housing proposals in the 1950s. In particular, this paper deals with the design methods (Grille Climatique), as well as their spatial, technical and sensory materialization (Unités d'habitation and Maison du Brésil). The conclusions of the article show the evolution of Le Corbusier's postulates, which beginning from his early proposal for the " Ville Radieuse " , managed to integrate the contributions of the " Science des climats artificiels " in architectural design looking for " Rétablir les conditions nature " in modern housing

L'émergence du développement durable au regard des mutations de l'histoire urbaine

National audienceAlors que la ville classique devait être belle en respectant les conventions de bienséance et que la ville moderne devait être radieuse en ordonnant ses besoins, la ville contemporaine doit être durable en assurant son lien avec la nature. depuis l'époque industrielle, l'entassement des habitants et l'engorgement des voies appellent des réformes rationnelles qui rendent la ville plus fluide, plus saine et plus naturelle. Les motifs et les projets du développement durable s'inscrivent aujourd'hui dans la continuité de ces discours

La construction du chez-soi dans la transition énergétique : entre conceptions de la performance et pratiques habitantes

International audienceCette publication est associée à la journée d’étude intitulée « La construction du chez-soi dans la transition énergétique : entre conceptions de la performance et pratiques habitantes » qui a eu lieu le 23 octobre 2015 à l’École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Nantes.Soutenue par le PREBAT/PUCA et Leroy Merlin Source, cette journée d'étude a été organisée par le CRENAU / UMR AAU, dans le cadre du projet de recherche « L’accompagnement des projets d’auto-réhabilitation par les magasins de bricolage : état des lieux et prospective pour l’amélioration énergétique de l’habitat en milieu rural » mené en 2014-2015.La publication rassemble les contributions de chercheurs et professionnels :•Françoise BARTIAUX, sociologue•Gaëtan BRISEPIERRE, sociologue•Céline DROZD, Ignacio REQUENA RUIZ, Kévin MAHÉ et Daniel SIRET, architectes•Pascal GONTIER, architecte•Viviane HAMON, consultante, et Marie-Maud GERARD, sociologue•Florent LAVIGNE et François LANNOU, architectes•Marie MANGOLD, sociologue•Bruno MARESCA, sociologue, et Stéphanie LACOMBE, photographe•Sophie RICARD, architecte•Éric VORGER, ingénieurLa construction ou la rénovation des logements, menée par les habitants seuls ou en lien avec des professionnels, fait intervenir des valeurs affectives et culturelles qui participent intimement aux qualités prêtées au « chez-soi ». Dans un contexte de promotion de l’efficacité énergétique, les auteurs mettent en discussion la question de la performance et de la construction du chez-soi dans l'objectif d'interroger les modalités de production et de rénovation de l’habitat. L’énergie, abordée ici dans une perspective transversale et interdisciplinaire, relie pratiques sociales et savoirs professionnels

La fabrique de l’expertise énergétique chez les auto-réhabilitateurs en milieu rural

International audienceAs a result of the changes on the comfort criteria and the social representations on the own house's energy efficiency, the field of building or renovation practices directly managed by inhabitants, becomes a topic of major importance for upgrading the housing stock. We suggest that these procedures can play a significant role for a wide range of refurbishing works that cannot be handled by conventional construction methods. Because of their approach more holistic and inclusive, these practices are better suited to face the economical, social and cultural issues inherent to housing renovation. This paper focuses on house upgrading for energy efficiency through " self-refurbishment " methods. We consider self-refurbishment as an inhabitant practice that gathers together activities arising from the pragmatic sphere of housing (from maintenance to self-building) and the private dimension of the construction of home and hominess (from Do It Yourself to interior design). In particular, the research main interests are to trace the inhabitants' procedures for learning how to build by themselves, to clarify their decision making process and to understand the role of energy in the construction of their building expertise. The research method is based on a qualitative social approach to energy. We conducted semi-directive interviews focused on the inhabitants' story in the different stages of their works: project conception and early enquiries; techniques learning and their implementation; systems management; house maintenance; systems renewal. The main topics were faced throughout the study of the inhabitants' story of their house works. The interviews were divided into three complementary approaches: the narration of their memories of works; the guided-explained visit of the house; the in-depth stories arising from personal documents (e.g., pictures, invoices, sketches, drawings). This research was conducted on eleven case studies in Northwest France, which constituted a diversified sampling of sites, housing typol-ogies, inhabitants' profiles and energy approach. As a result, the paper analyses the main constructs of the self-refurbishers expertise. Firstly, we study the motivations of inhabitants to build by themselves, which are strongly correlated with their previous experiences and their way of life. Secondly, the inquiries show the several ways of the inhabitants to create their expertise in energy according to the specific features of their projects as well as their personal network of both amateurs and professional actors. Thirdly, the experience reveals that these projects are characterized by the long-term in all their phases; they are even considered by the inhabitants such as endless works. Lastly, we highlight that energy consumption, instead of being directly dealt, seems to be intermingled with personal, social or economical criteria. Energy is part of a set of factors in the inhabitants' thinking, where the notion of comfort and the imaginary of energy efficiency influence both technical solutions and indoor atmospheres

Generation of Efficient High-Level Hardware Code from Dataflow Programs

High-level synthesis (HLS) aims at reducing the time-to-market by providing an automated design process that interprets and compiles high-level abstraction programs into hardware. However, HLS tools still face limitations regarding the performance of the generated code, due to the difficulties of compiling input imperative languages into efficient hardware code. Moreover the hardware code generated by the HLS tools is usually target-dependant and at a low level of abstraction (i.e. gate-level). A generated code at a high-level of abstraction (i.e. chip-level) is better suited to the needs of systems' architects because they can understand and control all of the design processes. We propose in this paper a new approach to HLS to generate efficient, high-level hardware code from Dataflow Programs. Implementation results (from two dynamic dataflow programs) on Xilinx, Altera and Latice FPGAs and on ASIC targeting 90nm CMOS technology are also presented