We often think that planting trees or installing porous coatings for integrated rainwater management is generally only an economic question.
However, there are many obstacles, more or less real or imagined, which prevent waterproofing or revegetation.
The “Fraîcheur de ville” architectural residency was an opportunity to highlight the constraints linked to the subsoil of heritage cities, of which the city of Arles is a perfect example.
Interviews with the services concerned with roads and networks made it possible to identify a certain number of obstacles to dewaterproofing which are summarized in the block diagram below.
The presence of more or less old networks, archaeological remains and overhanging cellars under the roadway is often presented as a constraint which slows down the implementation of certain urban cooling strategies.
If they actually exist, all these obstacles specific to heritage towns can be easily overcome at an additional cost (disconnection of networks, basement to fill, etc.).
All these operations must be justified with solid and quantified arguments on the benefits of dewaterproofing in order to convince the services concerned.
Source: Freio - climatic design
Image: Freio - climatic design