Fifteenth target HQE

Preliminary : Attention, which one has gathered for a few years under the generic term of “15th target” does not form part of current reference frame HQE (Environmental High-quality) validated by association HQE and its partners. In 2006, reference frame HQE relates to 14 targets (see article HQE). The idea of 15th target gathers in fact several elements, which seem today to usefully be able to supplement step HQE.

The Biodiversité remained relatively been unaware of in step HQE during its first 10 years. It is in the middle of the fifteenth target; at the same time objective and means of reaching the realization of this target. The objectives of the 15th target could however be more largely gathered behind the topic of the “refunding of the ecological debt” .
In the same way as one now makes houses “ with positive energy ” (which produce more energy than they do not consume any), the idea is here to make a frame whose envelope at least could offer as much place for the natural biodiversity than in the absence of construction, even more.
Si the HQE integrated this double objective (houses with positive energy and positive Biodiversité) it would tend to answer two major conventions of the Sommet of the Earth (Rio, June 1992), on the climatic modifications (declined in the Protocole of Kyoto whose objectives will be re-examined in 2012) and on the biodiversity.

the Biodiversité is thus apprehended here:

like natural resource useful and necessary to the architectural project, conceived like element of the " bearable Development " ,
as requiring particular conditions for its perenniality (It must be able to be installed in the natural parts surrounding construction and on the built envelope or certain built elements; roof, walls, grounds, functional elements of decoration or movable, alleys, basins, shelters, posts, fences, and other niches and nesting boxes…).
as contributing to the renaturation of our built-up areas and the environment in general, more and more artificialized.
like condition of the soutenability (one of the means of restoring and of protecting the biodiversity)
like indicator in oneself

Note:: This point could be integrated in the “ 1st already existing target ”, if it were specified, with a reference frame to be adapted to the biogeographic context of each project.

Why one 15th target?

The HQE is a voluntary, recent and still emergent step. As from 1997, it was the subject of the first formalization, likely to evolve to a standardization…
Like any step-quality, it is based on a process of Continuous improvement, for in particular adapting to the technical evolutions, the evolutions of knowledge as well as context (of which awaited climatic modifications).

It seems necessary and urgent to limit itself more to simply preserving existing it, because it already is very degraded. One would not have either to degrade by construction the environment of quality where there remains. How to refund with a right measurement the impacts of the urbanization and construction?

Since the end of the year 1990, the contributions (and gaps) of the first assessments of many constructions HQE and more generally known as “ecological” start to allow criticisms constructive.
Un certain number of actors suggested that approach HQE would gain to grow rich by a target being interested more closely in the “ecological Relation of the project (built, infrastructures, not-frame, operation.) with the environment”.
The architects already take care to preserve - to a certain extent - the trees and the natural elements of the sites which they will occupy and modify. But they are rather accustomed to working with landscape designers that ecologists. Moreover, the schools of architecture and Landscape have integrated the ecology of the landscape in their course only for a few years only, and sometimes in a very limited way.

What exists

Today (at the beginning of 2006), 1st of the 14 targets of the HQE asks the architect a harmonious relation of the buildings with their immediate environment , by proposing 4 under-targets to him:

use of the opportunities offered by the vicinity and the site;
management of the advantages and disadvantages of the piece;
organization of the piece to create a pleasant framework of life;
reduction of the risks of harmful effects between the building, its vicinity and the site;

. and of the minimal requirements:

to treat the insertion of the building in its environment by carrying out a prior study with the project a study of organization of the piece, a study of treatment of external and intermediate spaces. In the event of industrial waste lands, to analyze the level of pollution and to cleanse if necessary;
to respect a minimal level of acoustic protection of 50dB of the noises emitted by equipment or external practices, by possibly carrying out an acoustic treatment;
to locate the sources of external noise and to create a satisfactory soundproofing.

This framework makes it possible - if the building architect and owner wish it - to insert a priority into the biodiversity, possibly functional in their project. But the 1st target proposes neither minimal threshold, neither indicators, nor even clearly of “functional compensation”.
Without prohibiting it, this target thus does not engage with a compensatory approach or restauratoire.

New questionings

These two last approaches (compensatory, restauratoire) raise complex questions, in particular when with the level-objective of éco-landscape quality and thus of biodiversity to be sought, and as for the expiry concerned (one needs 300 to 800 years to produce an ancient oak, and by then we will have perhaps upset the climate at the point to exceed its conditions of survival).

The subjacent objective of one fifteenth target is thus to increase the capacity of the project to durably contributing to improve the environment, to protect, even restore the biodiversity, in the objective of tending to refund the ecological debt (to be erased its ecological print).

This target will be reached to 100%;

- if there is as much Biodiversity after construction than if there were no construction and that the medium had remained “natural” ,

- if Nature can be expressed fully and spontaneously on the site concerned.

By convention one will understand here by Nature, the places where the wild life and its processes can appear significantly and spontaneous, whatever and whatever were the actions of the Man .

Conditions of success

Construction modifying more or less, the medium, this target-objective will thus call so that the Anglo-Saxons name “ Mitigation ” ( “ecological repair” ). The architect will be necessarily based on the “ecological genius”. In this new prospect, the architect has to use the Alive one like dynamic component and functional of his construction. It was generally not formed for that and must thus learn how to collaborate with a ecologist. However the ecologist is not either accustomed to working on this type of subject, and in the French-speaking countries, the official teaching of urban ecology and the ecology of the landscape took much delay, compared to the Anglo-Saxon countries which profit from courses and literature specialized on the sujet
This also implies to finely consider the temporal dimension on environmental behalf of the project (If the column becomes the substrate of a Nature which “pushes”, as in the case of certain achievements of Patrick Blanc the architect must prepare or allow a plan of management adapted, on the court, means and long run).

the approach could for example be of type:

inventory of fixtures + ecological print and impact study

> conservative measures, compensatory and restauratoires

+ evaluation => rétrocorrectrices measurements

One approaches possibly also the ecological idea of Résilience.

These objectives could be integrated like under-objective of the 1st target, for example under the denomination “éco-biological Relation positive of the frame with the environment” (This title evokes at the same time insertion écopaysagère, the ecological functions, which are elements making it possible to some extent to approach the refunding of the ecological debt of installation and the users or in other words: to erase the ecological print of installation, its operation over all its lifespan).
But, for evoked reasons Ci below, it seems useful to have a more transverse target for the others.

“The 15th target”; Transverse and permanent objective:

For intrinsic reasons with this target, to in no case, the means of reaching the 14 “traditional” targets already, not more than the esthetic party selected, do not have to contradict the objective of the fifteenth target which includes necessarily the contribution of the project to restore, manage and protect the biodiversity. This thus implies to restore, manage or - if they exist - to protect the functions écopaysagères from the project, with: 1. zone-refuges, 2. zone-plugs, 3. a biological Connectivity protected or restored with natural environment, via a functional grid of biological Corridors.
These functions having to be integrated

in the internal and external zonation of the
project and to some extent on - and in - the built envelope and the associated infrastructures,
where that is compatible with the essential functions of the various components the zone, and with the safety and the comfort of the users.

Remark : It is not a question especially of carrying out an expensive arborétum artificially nor a zoo or an arch of Noah. It is simply a question of offering a network of spaces (of habitats) found, rebuilt or of substitution for the species which should be naturally present, within sight of the éco-landscape context or of the flora and fauna potential, by taking care that architecture is éco-compatible.

The objective in the medium and long term is that of a nature whose cycle is most self-sustained possible. It is thus a question durably of restoring the conditions (dynamic) of maintenance of the biodiversity, while keeping a minimal control, for example on rain water and of streaming and on the vegetation being next to or covering the frame.

General principles of the 15th target

A first principle is that of the Complexité inherent in the operation of the ecosystem S, seen like requirement with the restoration or the maintenance of the Biodiversité aimed by the 15th target. More one medium is complex (hollow, bumps, remote regions, sun, dry, wet, timbered medium, herbaceous layers, etc), more it is likely to accommodate a fauna and a flora rich person and diversified and more it will develop ecological functions which will become “services ecological” if the architect knew to take them into account like such. The alive one develops and is different according to conditions particular and often necessary. This is why approach HQE seeks to develop the offer in biotopes (natural or of substitution, but adapted to the local context), so that a great number of species can find refuge, food there, or simply use these biotopes like biological corridors.

A second principle is that of the car-maintenance of the medium. The ecosystem must be able to stabilize and control itself or at weak cost for the human occupants. The Man should only intervene there the least possible, which requires paradoxically, being given the artificial character of any grouped constructions, within the framework of a habitat answering 15th target HQE, to establish, as of even front construction it, a plan of management of the medium. It in addition takes often years, even tens of years or centuries, so that a medium disturbed by the man finds a certain balance.

A third principle is that of the “refunding of the ecological debt” of built, by taking care that fauna or the flora does not present however an compatibility issue with the infrastructure built in question (Ex: risk short-circuit on the image opposite), or do not put in danger fauna.

A fourth principle is that of safety for the Man. As example, if one wants for ecological reasons to keep Deadwood in “natural” spaces or to reintroduce it with Chronoxyle S, that Ci is " put in sécurité" , and supervised so as to avoid the accidents, as long as possible.

Conclusion and prospects

The landscape Matrice is too often gray-brown, punctuated of some spots of relictuelle Nature. This fifteenth target wants to contribute to reverse this tendency, to restore a matrix of Nature in which spots reserved for the habitat, with the productions and the networks of infrastructures will be less nuisantes and the splitting up possible one (for their users and the remainder of the alive species).

It is also necessary for that to reduce the effect of Fragmentation écopaysagère and the Pollution of the transport infrastructures, the linear cities, and to restore an ecological solid Maillage (functional network of biological corridors).

The difficulties are not financial, and nature still has powerful capacities of cicatrization. Moreover, this approach makes it possible considerably to decrease the contribution, even the exposure to the natural risks and thus the costs external. The difficulties come from the practices, of the lack of competences in ecological genius, of the abscence of criteria of ecoeligibility, owing to the fact that agriculture and town and country planning do not integrate yet the needs for the Biodiversity and owing to the fact that the tanks of biodiversity are increasingly rare, small, distant from/to each other and that they are impoverished. The more one waits, the more it will be difficult.

The payments of town planning (example of the Local plan of town planning or RAINED in France) start, sometimes, to take these aspects in account. Thus RAINED of Paris is pressed not on a number minimal of square meters per capita, but on an indicator new and qualitative the “ Coefficient of biotope ”, surpondéré whenever a new building is built in zone identified like overdrawn in green areas. If the manufacturer cannot answer his obligation of restoration of vegetalized zones , it must build walls and/or terraces or roofs vegetalized.

Lastly, of the urgent needs of concerted reflection, but also of research and development, formation and provision of tools and guides adapted to this target exist. The architects require now as much for the assistance of specialists in the behavior in the insects, the birds, the mammals, the Amphibians, the ecosystems that specialists in hygiene.

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