A term is becoming recurrent in the constructors' discourse: HEQ. An acronym to translate High Environmental Quality. It is a new notion, born in 1992 at the Earth Summit. Strengthened by a terrible report, the public authorities (finally!) became aware of the problems resulting from a barely controlled urbanisation. But long before the State, the actors of construction, of the environment, associated with the project managers opened the way. Not yet a legal duty, but a moral one.

High Environmental Quality... A challenge, a technology, a cost
HEQ rests on two principles: the construction, use and maintenance of a building, and the relevant quality approach to bring it to fruition; and it is based on 14 "targets". And it is in these targets that difficulties appear. Defined for an entire country, they often lose their meaning in front of the regional identity, of climatic, geographic and topographical differences of this same region. Worse, they are often subjected to "human" constraints that have hardly evolved. The targets are to be categorised along four main axes: Eco-construction, Eco-management, comfort and health. And each of these axes are concerned with a phase in the life of the building to be built or renovated. And again, differentiation must be made between individual housing: Collective buildings and individual housings (2.6 billion sq. metres), and the tertiary sector: 850 million sq. metres out of which half is for the public authorities. And it is clearly there where it is complicated. Between a State unwilling to lose its prerogatives... or its resources (with EDF (French National Electricity Company) for instance), between institutions which keep their power, starting with the town mayors, the DDE (Departmental Directorate of Equipment), the Bâtiments de France (French Civil Service for the Approval of Housing and Planning Permission), etc. a long time will be needed to change the legal texts... and the attitudes!

Sustainable development confronts the reality of the Côte d'Azur
After having spent more than two days trying unsuccessfully to reach the Environment Services of the Préfecture des Alpes Maritimes, after having asked a few town halls, with the same negative outcome, the heads of department hiding being the elected, we went to consult the internet site of the Direction Départementale de l’Equipement (Departmental Directorate of Equipment): "site under construction"! No more remained than to click on: "Visit the Ministry site", rather complete, but taking no account of the regional particularities. The Law of 13 July 2005 and its application Decrees are quite clearly defined. It results that from 1st January 2008, the project leader must complete, before the planning application, a technical and economic feasibility study of the various energy supply solutions for the building (Art. L.111-9 of the Building and Housing Code). S/he will be free to choose the source(s) of energy used in the construction, as guided by the conclusions of this study which will aim to rationalise the global cost by showing the benefits for the consumptions compared to the eventual additional investments. The following decrees have succeeded in strengthening the law: Decree n° 2006-592 of 24/05/06 related to the thermal specifications and the energy performance of the constructions; Order of 24/05/06 related to the thermal specifications of the new buildings and of the new sections of buildings; Order of 27/07/06 related to the content and the conditions for awarding the "high energy performance" certification, and particularly Order of 3 May 2003 related to the "conditions to be met in order to benefit from overshooting the floor occupation ratio in the event of compliance with the energy performance for a construction project".

Provence-Alpes- Côte d'Azur (PACA) region, already a few projects
If each region in France suggests its differences, the PACA region, already strongly urbanised, compared to the others has one major inconvenience: the cost of land. Because we mustn't lie to ourselves, the HEQ construction generates costs above the norm. But even before building, you must obtain permits! And if some towns accept building areas superior in HEQ, they still remain quite stubborn on "integration". Although some of them have already integrated the changes well. For instance, the new Agricultural College of Antibes, the Gendarmerie of Saint Martin du Var or the Mediatheque of Valbonne (Cabinet d’architecte Marsup), the elected representatives as well as the various stakeholders have left themselves be convinced by the architects of the correctness of their choices. And often, these choices were made according to the principles of our elders: "landscaped terraces, the creation of patios, the use of old principles such as the Arabian, Persian or Provençal wells", born out of the common sense of nature well studied and respected.

 


Intelligence and Common sense... And reality
If the Attali Commission proposed to create in 2012 around 10 "Ecopolis", new HEQ towns of 50,000 inhabitants, including 20% of green spaces and supplied by wind mills or solar energy, it is surely not on the Mediterranean shore that one might see one of them! Because if the regulation problems are not yet well tuned, those of the construction in themselves are a completely different challenge. If it is obvious that eco-competition is a true market for tomorrow, it is a true "Chinese puzzle" for today. Other regulations will be put in place. We dare hope that they will be published for good reasons. The future will decide. For the moment, what is important is that everyone has understood this global issue.