L’Autre Soie – Inclusion at the heart of Urban Planning

Description

L’Autre Soie is an inclusive housing project located in the Carré de Soie district of eastern Lyon, the emblematic district of the artificial silk industry of the 1920s, and in completion will cover 23,500 m2. It is supported by the CCO (Ecumenical Cultural Centre) and GIE La Ville Autrement, a consortium consisting of Alynéa, Aralys, Est Métropole Habitat (EMH) and Rhône Saône Habitat (RHS) possessing combined expertise in emergency shelter, social inclusion provision and real estate management.

Context

French urban areas are confronted by increasing impoverishment, mainly in working class nieghbourhoods on the outskirts of cities, that generates critical situations for housing access and homelessness. In 2016, 15% of Lyon inhabitants were under the threshold of poverty, 67% had an income below the threshold for social housing and 8500 requests for housing were unresolved by the Maison de Veille Sociale (integrated service for reception and orientation).

Issues tackled

Places inside Lyon’s agglomeration, the project aims to respond to three main challenges:

Access to housing for vulnerable groups

The fight against urban segregation

Urban renovation with a strong environmental impact

Actors involved

• CCO (Ecumenical Cultural Centre)
• GIE La Ville Autrement
• Est Métropole Habitat (EMH)
• Rhône Saône Habitat (RHS)
• Alynéa
• Aralys

Results

L’Autre Soie, which will cover 23,500 m2 including 311 units of secure social home ownership, social and emergency housing solutions, is an inclusive housing project that will be built between 2018 and 2025 in the Carré de Soie district, a new centre in eastern Lyon combining economic and residential development. The project goal is to change the housing paradigm by placing vulnerable groups at the heart of the city while demonstrating how they can bring societal and economical value to their district.

Why it works

Creating housing accessible to all in a central district therefore enabling vulnerable people to find housing by overturning gentrification mechanics, thanks to adapted and diversifies housing. The project evolves around fostering initiative, service provision and exchange.

Making the site immediately liveable by developing a modular housing solution: house homeless families as quickly as possible by having the, take part in the realisation of the project

Work to include vulnerable people: strengthen the social, economic, cultural and civic integration of vulnerable groups. The aim is to address the issue of the interconnection of poverty factors by proposing on the same site very diverse activities managed by social actorsin order to create the links and dynamics of inclusion.

Put people back at the heart of the city: make culture a driver of citizenship and social mix by offering cultural activities. The objective is to mobilise the inhabitants’ own resources and their capacity for commitment around cultural and social projects. It is also an opportunity to listen to, test and accompany the transformations of the site by linking the new and existing populations of the neighbourhood and allowing them to take the possession of the site.

Sustainable renewal of the city: rehabilitation and use of the resources of the demolition to build a new project with meaning.

Scale

local