Urban Brownfield Regeneration Projects: Complexities and Issues

Because of urban brownfields’ inherent complexity related to their very nature, as well as their intermediate scale—the neighbourhood—regeneration projects are not a spontaneous process. Indeed, an urban brownfield regeneration project may encounter several issues, which can be obstacles, barriers, or resistance, that we classify in four types: sociocultural barriers, governance involved by the multiplication of actors, legal and regulatory constraints, and deterrent costs. While these issues contribute in turn to complexify brownfield regeneration projects, they are not insurmountable. Finally, to overcome urban brownfield regeneration projects’ complexities and issues, we argue that there is a need to implement real project dynamics. To this end, we provide four potential approaches to foster the creative development of tailored solutions.

Introduction

The regeneration of brownfields in European metropolitan areas represents an important potential to mitigate urban sprawl by increasing density within the existing built fabric and to revitalize portions of cities at the neighbourhood scale. Although research and projects on urban brownfields are active, several issues still need to be overcome, especially regarding the sustainability transition challenge. Based on this observation, we introduce the present book, which proposes an integrated and theoretically grounded approach to highlight how urban brownfield regeneration projects—and the neighbourhood scale that they entail—can effectively contribute to the urban sustainability transitions of metropolitan areas. It is structured in two parts that are both distinct and complementary: the first part aims to clarify the framework of the investigations with definition and analysis and the second part presents a deep analysis of processes, project dynamics, and sustainability assessment approaches of urban brownfield regeneration.

Sustainability Monitoring: Principles, Challenges, and Approaches

Because of the inherent complexity of urban brownfield regeneration projects, achieving sustainability objectives is not easy. It requires approaches adapted to the specificities of this type of operation, that allow for structured and regular follow-up, and that are integrated into the project dynamics. In this chapter, we argue that sustainability monitoring can help address this challenge. We start by defining the principles of sustainability evaluation and monitoring. Then, we look deeper at the challenges of an operational monitoring tool from the brownfield regeneration perspective. On this basis, we plead for the necessity of tailor-made operational monitoring tools for this type of operation and define, to this end, three general requirements for said tools. Finally, we make a critical analysis of existing certifications at the neighbourhood scale and different approaches developed for brownfield regeneration projects.

An Operational Monitoring Tool

The transition from an urban brownfield to a sustainable neighbourhood is a complex operation. To help decision-makers reach sustainability objectives through measurement, follow-up, and communication about performance indicators, we introduce in this chapter a tailor-made operational monitoring tool. Such a tool should satisfy three general requirements: a search for overall quality, adequacy with the specificities of urban brownfield regeneration projects, and integration into the project dynamics. Accordingly, the multi-criteria evaluation system SIPRIUS and the quality management monitoring software OKpilot are hybridized to create SIPRIUS+. In the first section, we explain the functioning of the two existing methodologies and the adaptions we made to help meet the general requirements and to create the hybrid tool. Then, we present the resulting monitoring tool, SIPRIUS+, and its functionalities.

Sustainable Infrastructure Projects: Systemic versus Traditional Delivery Models

Sustainability involves multiple environmental, technical, social and economic factors, and such complex analysis requires systemic solutions. Delivery models are key to achieving system benefits and enhancing sustainable development in infrastructure investments. They define the phases of a project, incentive structures, risk sharing and the relationships among the actors in it. They are usually developed early in the project and determine the project dynamics and outcomes. We compared traditional delivery models with systemic ones. We identified and illustrated elements that differ between them through two cases. The contribution is an increased understanding of how systemic infrastructure delivery models can adapt to changes in their environment. We also found that sustainability is vastly under-researched in systemic infrastructure delivery, but that its potential to deliver benefits to PPP infrastructures is substantial.

Spring diagrams for the visualization of construction project dynamics

Construction projects are very dynamic, so change management is crucial there. Changes in schedule and in stakeholders relationships are among the most important change management areas. Making decisions on such changes is an extremely difficult task. It can be facilitated by special visualization techniques. The existing techniques are analyzed and their drawbacks revealed. In order to address these drawbacks, new techniques are proposed for the visualization of both schedule and stakeholders relationships changes. They are based on the application of the spring image used in mechanics to the visualization of the project’s dynamics. The performance of the techniques is shown in examples. The results are discussed and further research is outlined.

Emotional Tools Design: A Project to Increase Empathy, Engagement and Interest in Industrial Design Students

Empathy is the ability of people to identify emotional aspects of others. A fundamental aspect to teaching in design education must be empathy. This paper presents the design process of an emotional tools using emoticons or emojis for evaluated products as educational exercise. The dynamics behind of the tool is the empathy experimented during the develop of the emojis characters. The project was implemented in the second period of the second year, with an execution time of 5 weeks. A series of surveys were conducted to assess perception of aspects such as utility, novelty, sensitivity and relevance of the project, in addition to knowing the progress of empathy evoked by the students dynamic. The results revealed the following findings: The opinion of 25 students describe their wide acceptance of this project methodology. Students considered the relevance of assessment processes, their recommendation to use those processes, and invited other students to develop it. Also, student’s positive perception about utility, novelty, sensibility and relevance of project dynamics are not determined by acceptance of this type of project. The preliminary results suggest that this educational exercise has the potential to cultivate or train empathy and other skills in design and engineering students.

Toward a Precarious Projectariat? Project dynamics in Slovenian and French social services

Project organization is used extensively to promote creativity, innovation and responsiveness to local context, but can lead to precarious employment. This paper compares European Social Fund (ESF)-supported projects supporting ‘active inclusion’ of disadvantaged clients in Slovenia and France. Despite many similarities between the two social protection fields in task, temporality, teams and socio-economic context, the projects had different dynamics with important implications for workers. In Slovenia project dynamics have been precarious, leading to insecure jobs and reduced status for front-line staff; in France, by contrast, projects and employment have been relatively stable. Our explanation highlights the transaction, more specifically, the capacity of government agencies to function as intermediaries managing the transactions through which ESF money is disbursed to organizations providing services. We find that transnational pressures on the state affect its capacity as a transaction organizer to stabilize the organizational field. In Slovenia, transnational pressures associated with austerity and European Union integration have stripped away this capacity more radically than in France, leading to precarious project dynamics and risk shifting onto project workers.

Project and Risk Management in a Global Context

Project management is one of the possible ways to improve the organizational reputation and create value. The control achievable on each project' constrains (time, cost and quality) and the actions consequent by assessment process can represent in theory a guarantee for the success of a project. In practical, there are many risks capable of upsetting the project dynamics leading to failures. Risk management, or the specific area of knowledge of Project Risk Management, are useful to prevent this possible occurrence. The global dimension of organizations' networks that use PM, moves this quality to the project that this organizations do. A definition of global project is provided as well as also the consequent considerations about the cross-cultural aspect within the peoples involved in this type of project. It is framed and proposed a new category of risk related to management of global project: cultural risk analysis.