City Investment and Partnership Opportunities: Paris, France
Transform Schools Into “Oases,” Authentic Cooling Islands
Since adopting its climate change adaptation strategy, Paris has launched several sites aimed at adapting urban spaces to high temperatures. Schoolyards represent more than 600,000 m2 in Paris (up to 800,000 m2 when including the “collèges”), currently covered with impermeable asphalt, and closed to the wider population even outside school hours. Furthermore, very few Parisians live more than 200m from a school, thus priming them to be local “oases” for cooling and well-being in the city. The medium- to long-term proposal is to implement a cooling programme for all schools, with the goal of gradually replacing asphalt with vegetation and/or testing new materials and new methods to cool schoolyards and/or dormitories. With this in place, schoolyards will become places for learning and well-being, as well as “cool refuges” for community members vulnerable to heat waves. With extensive stakeholder engagement, these processes will be tested in two to three schools in the next months, with the first “oasis schoolyards” expected to open in September 2018. The initiative has the potential to be replicated in 700 schools throughout Paris.
Investment/Partnership Opportunity: A wide range of stakeholders in Paris are already involved in the project, and several research labs (Ecole des Ingénieurs de la Ville de Paris, Université Paris Diderot, Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées) are interested in supporting the monitoring and evaluation process. Further expertise is needed around benchmarking best practices, technical innovation, and participative design with children. Furthermore, the initiative has generated funding from the city up to €150K, corresponding to a “classical” schoolyard renovation; additional funding will be necessary for technical innovation and evaluation that fall outside of the renovation mandate.
Contact: Sébastien Maire, Chief Resilience Ocer | Sebastien.maire@paris.fr
