Infrastructure as a Deeply Integrated Sustainable Urban Project

This paper explores infrastructure projects that present a conscious merging between urban transformation, community development, culture, and technology through sustainable design. When urban projects successfully and meaningfully include all these dimensions, we refer to them as “blended infrastructure” projects, since they offer much more than just infrastructure. A literature review pertaining to the rejuvenation and renewal of cities reveals that infrastructure projects have the potential to be at once, smart and ecological as well as cultural and deeply integrated urban interventions. We, therefore, propose that ‘blended infrastructure’ projects are those that profoundly integrate anthropological and technological dimensions. These two poles are the basis of our analysis method. Our methodology, which includes a mapping tool, is used to cartograph a series of design projects. We select two sets of projects for analysis. First, we select “light infrastructure” projects that are not yet built, still in an imaginary phase, which have a common underlying positive intention of bringing sustainability to the city. Second, we select heavier, already built, infrastructure projects, those subjected to real-world constraints, i.e., economic, political, etc. These polarities (light and imagined vs. heavy and realized) will help test the applicability of this mapping approach on different types of infrastructures. By studying projects on either side of a spatial design spectrum, we aim to understand which types of projects have a potential to be “blended infrastructure” projects—and therefore, deeply integrated sustainable urban interventions, as key contributions to the future of our cities


INTRODUCTION
Amid the global social, environmental, and technological changes we are witnessing, urban centers have garnered increased interest from researchers, practitioners, as well as governments. Upgrading existing urban centers now presents new opportunities for re-envisioning the these projects. The conclusion also presents some of the limitations of the tool before highlighting the direction for future improvements and research.

URBAN RENEWAL-SUSTAINABILITY, TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE
During the last decades, cities, especially those that are part of industrialized societies have witnessed major shifts in their redevelopment strategies. This shift can be traced back to the changes and challenges that are emerging within the social, economic, environmental, and cultural dimensions. In response, the traditional urban regeneration and renewal models, which mainly focus on the physical realities of spaces, have become inadequate and would benefit from more complex and multi-layered parameters [1,4]. Hakim and Roshanali [7] propose that these non-physical and sometimes non-spatial urban development supplements are important to break the vicious urban deterioration cycle where economic, socio-cultural, structural and environmental factors are highly interlinked. Since the late 1990s, urban regeneration has moved beyond revitalization to adopt a process of strategic rethinking that places renewal and redevelopment as part of the future of cities which are intrinsically linked to their cultural, environmental social and economic profiles [1]. A variety of visions have emerged in response to this shift. Two key approaches are clear: one focusing on technology as a means while the other focusing on the cultural dimension. In the next few paragraphs, some of these will be presented and compared. Additionally, the roles proposed in the literature for the infrastructure in these visions will be made explicit.
One of the visions which received significant attention in the past few years is that of smart or intelligent cities. Angelidou [6] proposes two key forces that shape smart cities: (1) urban futures, where technology is recognized as the key driver for imagining and putting into action the future city that is modern, connected, democratic and healthy, and (2) the knowledge and innovation economy, where cities and their future can be seen as intrinsically linked to the mobilization and management of knowledge and innovation. Thus, an integrated approach to smart cities would need to focus on the human and social capitals, and where "smartness" would be focused on behavioural changes and would respond to the needs, skills and interests of users [6]. In the literature, the possibility of realizing these visions, which are data-driven, connected, and responsive-is contingent on the investment and development in "smart infrastructures" such as cyber and technology infrastructures.
information and communication technology (ICT) among others, as well as data collection and management infrastructure-are in fact aimed at optimizing and reducing energy use, sustainably managing natural and human resources and for improving the quality of life-elements which relate to the environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability [5].
Bisello et al. [3] also propose that "smartness" becomes a cross-cutting "soft" domain that intersects the hard domains of city planning such as energy infrastructure as well as transport and mobility infrastructures.
Indeed, the smartness and its technologies should be understood as tools that supplement the infrastructures that constitute the visions of the sustainable city.
Alongside the technological visions of the future, the notion of cultural development has gained significant interest in the literature and in practice. Marling et al. [4] propose that culturally focused revitalization can be understood as a future vision that they name the "experience-city".
In this vision, experience-driven, cultural, playful, fun and educational experiences are fused with the transformation of urban areas [4]. Grodach & Loukaitou-Sideris [2] distinguish three key cultural development strategies: (1) entrepreneurial, which is focused on economic growth and the creation of positive city image, (2) creative class, which aims at improving the quality of life and to attract users to the creative economy, and (3) progressive, which is focused on community development and encouraging the local production of culture through arts and education.
Ferilli et al. [1] propose three levels of cultural integrations in urban regeneration projects (1) cultural-led regeneration where culture is the main catalyst for regeneration, (2) cultural regeneration where culture is fully integrated in the regeneration along other sustainability domains (namely, social, environmental and economic), and (3) culture and regeneration where the notion of culture is integrated only superficially rather than strategically. The idea of cultural-led and cultural regeneration can thus be directly linked to the creative and progressive cultural development strategies. These views can help us conclude that culture, or the experience of culture in cities, becomes another soft domain in the planning of cities' interests in the "hard" domains of infrastructures.
Thus, for the effective integration of culture, renewal plans must move beyond the provision of hard infrastructures to include the activation and programming of infrastructure. By looking especially at Grodach and Loukaitou-Sideris' [2] creative class and progressive approaches of cultural development, we can recognize that they move beyond the consumeristic approach of culture (i.e., touristic development, projected images, and branding strategies) to encompass the social and economic and cultural dimensions of sustainability.
We hold that the intersection of these two approaches could result in new forms of sustainable infrastructure design project. Following a similar logic to Marling et al.'s [4] definition of hybrid cultural projects we propose to name this new form "blended infrastructure projects". These J Sustain Res. 2019;1:e190005. https://doi.org/10.20900/jsr20190005 projects can consist of major or light projects. In this context, "light" infrastructure projects are those that aim to support and complement existing "major" infrastructures, where a conscious merging between socio-cultural and technological dimensions is utilized to attain urban transformation, community development, dynamic urban experiences, local economic development, as well efficient resource management [4].
By binding the three pillars of sustainability (i.e., social, economic, environmental) through culture and technology, blended infrastructure projects can thus be understood as deeply integrated sustainable urban interventions: relevant to their urban and economic context, appropriate to their users, and most importantly, environmentally sound. Through these intersections, we can start to concretely understand the notion of "blended infrastructure projects" as urban transformation infrastructure projects that consciously fuse community development, cultural missions, and technology. These projects are well integrated within their context, effectively manage natural and energy resources, help improve the quality of life, encourage the production of local culture, and, most importantly, are activated and programmed. Bisello et al. [3] propose that smart and intelligent cities are encapsulated within the sustainable city visionwhere the social, economic, environmental and cultural dimensions are at balance. As such, we propose that blended infrastructure projects become the means for achieving this sustainable vision, which can also generate a unified brand (i.e., the city as destination), and present a sense of place that is unique, sustainable, tangible and relevant [11]. Figure 1 illustrates the relation between smart-city and cultural development strategies within the lens of sustainability, in which their sum is the potential for blended projects. Based on a topological approach to urban studies, the intersecting boundaries of Figure 1 are figurative in their definition considering the complex reality of urban projects [12]. Even projects that predominantly have a smart-city approach will inevitably include some cultural development aspects. Although these complex and intertwined relations cannot be ignored or reduced to single labels, they are approached and categorized in this paper based on the implicit intention of the designers.

Mapping Urban Design Projects
If the activity of design seeks to understand and address the "what is" of a situation, its primary goal is to conceptualize the "what can be" or the "what should be" for any given situation in order to improve it-this is the idea of projection [12][13][14]. Design is, therefore, a project of intentions [15] that aims to change a current situation into an improved and desired situation [14], where a conscious effort of anticipation of uncertainties is done through the process of reflection-in-action that includes, when necessary, technical rationality as defined by Schön [16]. Since projects are characterized by this ambivalent nature, then a conscious effort to anticipate the repercussions of their intentions is critical, especially when the focus is to encourage shifts in collective behaviours and on the longterm visions and their manifestations of the sustainable city [17].
According to Jean-Pierre Boutinet, anticipation or anticipative action is characterized by the fact that one must decide which course of action to take when faced with decisions or dilemmas in a situation, which include aspects of both the motivational nature and the anthropological nature of the project. The motivational nature refers to whether the underlying purpose of the project is technological innovation or is the improvement of the human condition [14,17,18]. The model by Boutinet is a good starting point and is indeed frequently adopted to analyze design and architectural projects. Specifically, Boutinet proposes to understand projects based on two main axes [14,18]: namely, the anthropological nature and the motivational nature. The anthropological nature of the project refers to the societal axis-whether the project involves collective or individual involvement [16]. In the context of urban renewal and city development, this anthropological axis can be correlated with cultural development approaches. Cucuzzella [19] also provides a mapping tool, developed in the context of sustainable architectural projects in order to better understand the emerging architectural rhetoric of environmental buildings. In her approach, projects are examined based on two main axes: (1) textually: where the design can be considered as a "blended infrastructure" project, which consciously and meaningfully fuses technological and socio-cultural elements. In these blended infrastructure projects, the design intent is founded on the 'blending' of smart and socio-cultural. To analyze infrastructure projects on the map, the architectural, spatial, and conceptual dimensions of projects must be considered. Contemporary geography, primarily adopting poststructuralist epistemologies, have demonstrated that urban realities are constituted by complex networks that combine actors, spaces and nonhuman elements [21]. This understanding, explored in the urban assemblages literature, reveals that any approach or project cannot be completely free from technological or socio-cultural characteristics: that all projects exhibit an integration of these approaches on some level [13,21,22]. The mapping approach, proposed in Figure 2, does not doubt this complexity. Instead, the mapping tool seeks to categorize projects and design approaches based on the implicit and overarching intentions of the designers-thus a blended approach is understood as a result of the conscious intent of combining smart and socio-cultural.
By utilizing the proposed map in analyzing infrastructure projects, we aim to confirm our hypothesis: "blended" projects are a new autonomous category of infrastructures, which are distinguishable and manifest J Sustain Res. 2019;1:e190005. https://doi.org/10.20900/jsr20190005 unique urban characteristics. In order to find such projects, we adopted the following sampling methodology where such projects would most likely be present.

Figure 2.
Proposed mapping tool for design approaches in infrastructure urban projects.

Sampling Urban Infrastructure Projects
Real infrastructure projects in urban centers, especially in developed countries, are complicated design endeavours and usually require the involvement of multiple stakeholders. From the initial imagined design proposal to the final realized form, many limitations emerge and changes are inevitable [23]. Thus, we can imagine a topological axis for infrastructure projects that moves from the original imagined idea to the fully realized project-in this paper, the axis is called "level of realization".
If we use Boutinet's [15] concept of anticipation in projects, we can infer that the original idea includes a high degree of anticipation, which then reaches a level of zero (0) in the constructed project. Additionally, we have tried to distinguish two types of infrastructure projects that are apparent in modern cities: (1) major infrastructure projects, which are focused on augmenting the level of services and capacity of cities (including bridges, major highways, ports, etc.), and (2) light infrastructure projects, which mainly focus on improving the quality of service in existing infrastructures (including landscape improvements, quality of urban life through urban furniture, interactive media, etc.). There is no clear boundary that separates these two categories. Instead, we propose a topological axis with a continuous variation-this axis is called in this paper the "Project Nature". Figure 3 presents the two axes described.
Since this research paper constitutes a first step in the exploration of blended infrastructure projects, the proposed sample for the case study is and include a small number of complex design parameters. Major infrastructure projects often undergo many political discussions and tensions that charge them with many connotations-relating to modes of production, means of economy, political aims or political power. Light and imagined infrastructure projects are not yet heavily charged connotationally-their political, environmental, social, and cultural values are still in the process of being defined. Our sampling hypothesis states that: these projects are a fertile starting point for exploring blended infrastructure projects, including their design approaches and their distinction from other smart or cultural design projects (this selection is highlighted in dark grey in Figure 3).
The framework proposed does not explicitly consider the underlying complexities that shape urban realities or the processes of urban planning.
It also does not put into question the value of the project. In order to mitigate and to provide meaningful assessment, the sampling has to consider projects with shared underlying value. For this paper, the selected projects had to have an explicit focus on sustainability-in order to assume that these projects have a collective positive value of bringing sustainability in the city. Although the aim of the framework is to assess the intentions of the designs (or designers), these intentions are not always clear in large projects. The use of the framework to assess major built projects then raises many questions around urban assemblages: relating to value, power and conflicts.
However, in order to be able to test the applicability of the proposed mapping tool in the context of constructed infrastructure projects, we will also attempt in the discussion section of the paper to analyze a group of realized infrastructure projects in Montreal that vary in their naturefrom light to major (selection highlighted in light grey in Figure 3). The paper highlights how the mapping of these Montreal projects, which do not have similar values embedded within them, may be problematic since it leads to the emergence of larger value and ethical questions. Additionally, sustainable design interests many fields of social and cultural studies [27,28]. An understanding of how designers design for sustainability through the study of competition projects has already unveiled a series of tensions between the cultural and technical dimensions of their work [29]. This paper focuses on and analyses the winning projects of one specific case study competition, the second international design competition organized by the research initiative Increasingly, technical solutions to sustainability, which are based on highly structured principles that largely seek ever more eco-efficiency [28,29], have revealed several limitations due to the normative nature of their analyses tools, their fragmented project analysis processes, and their lack of awareness to the crucial social and cultural questions [29,30]. We can already identify three paradoxes resulting from these types of sustainable design practices: • human behaviour is hardly considered in environmental evaluations, yet behaviour is at the core of environmental degradation and specifically resource consumption [23,31], • predicted performance measurements of design projects rely on managerial and eco-deterministic approaches, yet there is a large gap between these promises based on best case scenarios and actual performance [29][30][31][32], and J Sustain Res. 2019;1:e190005. https://doi.org/10.20900/jsr20190005 • representations of "green" design are often added to spaces or buildings to communicate the 'greenness' of these projects rather than integrating actual effective environmental processes or characteristics not necessarily visible to the general user of these spaces or buildings [20,29,32].
It may be that some of the predominant international discourses and approaches have to be reconsidered in order to re-position humans at the center of climate change issues, to move away from demonstrative ecological add-ons, and rather towards critical integration [19,29,32].
CoLLaboratoire aims to address these paradoxes. for the city, a vibrant venue for art and design initiatives and projects and that has a historic significance for artists and designers [34]. These public space installations are intended to create an urban narrative along Sherbrooke Street that will bring the conversation of these 'simple' yet complex world-wide problematics into a local context [35]. These smallscale urban interventions serve as elements of a path to a sustainable, resilient future. Resilience, as it relates to the city, does not only mean to be able to cope, survive and adapt, in extreme situations, floods, storms, attacks, fire, but it also refers to the capacity for individuals, communities, CoLLaboratoire platform is founded on these principles. and that can provide innovative adaptations across seasons as well as throughout the day. Competitors were asked to submit two main deliverables: (1) a design that is engaging on a social, environmental, and cultural level, and (2) at least one (or more) written design principles that could be adopted for future implementation for comparable sites around the city [39]. These design requirements are a good representation of blended infrastructure projects identified in the literature.

Received proposals
The competition received widespread interest with more than two hundred (200) teams registered from thirty (30)   to the teams' design experience and country of origin [39].

A cartography of the winning and mentioned design proposals
As indicated in the competition brief, one project was selected as the winner for each of the four (4) sites. Additionally, several honorary mentions were selected by the jury as seen fit. A total of fourteen (14) projects received awards and mentions. Figure 6 presents the mapping of the winning and mentioned projects using the analysis and mapping grid proposed. The mapping was completed based on an in-depth analysis of the formal qualities, the project elements, design principles as well as the jury comments for each of the fourteen (14) projects. Table 1 presents the titles of the analyzed projects, the project's main illustration as well as a sampling of the jury comments.

Understanding Blended Infrastructure Projects
The mapping of the winning and mentioned projects of the "More than Waiting for the Bus" competition, shows only four (4) out of the fourteen room. This presents a cultural regeneration approach [1] to create a sense of communal space around the bus shelter which is supported by solar panels as a mean for clean energy generation [8,9]. Finally, in Box of  [4,6]. However, the technological integration can be considered more passive, rather than responsive or information driven (which is why its position on the analysis map was at the border between quadrants C and D). These four projects, although different in approach and design content, aim to move the physical improvement of the site to deeply integrate the socio-cultural and technological dimensions to attain a deep sustainable vision. In these imagined and light projects, the integration was achieved through small interventions, which present a clear sense of place that is larger than the sum of their discrete design elements.
To explore the applicability of this mapping methodology to infrastructure projects of different scales, five (5) Montreal projects are selected.

Mapping Major Infrastructure Projects in Montreal
Since June 2006, Montreal has joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network by being designated a UNESCO City of Design. This designation is, in fact, an invitation to develop Montreal around creative forces through collaboration between citizens, experts, government, and designers. In 2017, the city's 375th anniversary featured many projects and initiatives that use design as their main paradigm-projects which aimed to explore the city's history and to imagine its future as UNESCO City of Design [41]. Additionally, the city and its boroughs have put forward ambitious plans for urban renewal which tackle various major infrastructures including bridges, motorways, and ports. All the selected projects in this analysis are realized projects-located at the opposite side from the case study-on the realization level axis (see Figure 3). These projects vary in their naturefrom lighter to major projects. The details and images of the five infrastructure projects are presented in Table 2. It is important to highlight that the framework proposed does not intend to assess the value of the project-political, economic, social, or environmental. Rather, the assessment is focused on the design approach of the projects. Unlike the projects presented in the case study above, the Montreal projects transcend the underlying future-oriented values embedded in sustainable design projects.
In Illuminating the Jacques-Cartier Bridge project, lighting is used to augment the existing bridge-making it fit within the light infrastructure project definition proposed. In the Bonaventure Legacy-a redesigned entrance to the city, the project consisted mainly of re-designing and renewing the main avenue while also landscaping, vegetating and animating the area with art to create social public spaces. The project for covering the Ville-Marie autoroute was essentially an urban re-stitching project that involved major infrastructure investment for creating a platform on top of a portion of an existing motorway, also creating a new public square (Places des Montrealaises)-the first public square dedicated to women of Montreal and that will be programmed to host a variety of cultural events. The Alexandra Pier project aims to revamp a part of Montreal's port, welcoming tourists arriving from the Saint-Lawrence river. The project involved creating a new terminal. Finally, the Champlain Bridge is considered one of the largest infrastructure investments in the city and aims to improve the motorway capacity while also presenting a positive image for the city of Montreal. Figure 7 presents the distribution of the projects on the project nature axis.   and mapping of the actor-network (to explore who was affected by the project, who was it intended for, and what compromises had to be made) is required to ground the conclusion of the comparison in the urban reality of Montreal [9][10][11][12]22]. However, within the focus on the design approaches of the projects, the findings support the notion that light infrastructure projects do in fact have a large potential to act as deeply integrated sustainable urban interventions in cities.

Characteristics and Exemplars for the Four Approaches
The projects presented in this paper can serve as references to the four (4) approaches proposed in Figure 2. Table 3 summarizes some of the characteristics of each of the approaches and highlights exemplary cases from the examined projects. A physical approach mainly aims to augment the capacity and performance of infrastructure by replacing or adding new elements without the conscious intention of adding ICT or a sociocultural role for the project. This represents a logical approach to urban development which has been argued to be inadequate with the reality of the complex of urban spaces [1,4]. This approach is exemplified in Team 134's Public Platform where the platform serves a functional role and augments the physical capacity of the shelter. It is also seen in the new Champlain bridge, which is designed to have a larger capacity to meet the transit demands of the city. In a socio-cultural approach, the design aims to focus on creating playful experiences, on creating new opportunities at the site, while allowing for users' appropriation and new functions to emerge [1,4]  on the topic highlights the distinction between these two approaches: • Socio-cultural integration results in cultural development and the experience city vision [2,4,11]; • Technological integration results in a smart or intelligent city vision [3,5,[7][8][9]. This paper focuses on a case study which presents a group of light and imagined infrastructure projects. This case study, which is based on an international competition of design ideas, sought designs to improve the spaces surrounding bus stops: fitting directly within the light and imagined categories selected in the sampling methodology. Fourteen (14) projects that won or received honorary mentions in the competition, were analyzed. The mapping revealed that only four of the projects achieved a deep integration of the anthropological and technological. The four projects presented a unified brand for the destination and presented a sense of place that is unique, tangible and relevant. They offered a conscious and careful integration of elements from the anthropological and technological dimensions that moved beyond cultural development strategies or smart-city approaches for attaining a vision of the sustainable city.
To test the applicability of the mapping approach to different types of infrastructure projects, a smaller sample of realized and more major infrastructure projects was selected. Five realized Montreal infrastructure projects were selected that ranged in their nature (from light to light projects). The analysis of these projects revealed that none of the projects attained the blended approach. The results also indicated that the 'lightest' project, namely the illumination of the Jacques-Cartier bridge, was closest to the 'blended and integrated' approach. These findings suggest that lighter projects have a higher potential for adopting 'blended' approaches, which can constitute deeply integrated sustainable urban interventions.
Further research is needed to understand why the major-built projects J Sustain Res. 2019;1:e190005. https://doi.org/10.20900/jsr20190005 analyzed were not capable of achieving the blended approach. This would necessitate their context (political, economic, social and cultural) to be analyzed in detail in order to understand the connotative meanings inherent in them, the conflicts embedded in their realization, and the power struggles that surrounded their creation.
It is important to highlight in the conclusion that this paper is a primary step in studying this innovative type of infrastructure project-namely The study provides important insights to researchers and practitioners in the field of urban design, and urban planners when it comes to understanding the dominant urban renewal approaches. It also provides a new method to understand approaches for attaining the sustainable-city vision. The paper also provides a preliminary working definition for blended infrastructure projects as major or light projects where a conscious merging between socio-cultural and technological dimensions is utilized to attain urban transformation, community development, and local economic development, as well efficient resource management [4].
The study also presented an exploration of the imagined and realized manifestation of blended infrastructure projects in the city of Montreal.
The investigation revealed that these projects bind the pillars of sustainability, culture and technology. In fact, blended infrastructure projects can be understood as deeply integrated sustainable urban interventions that are relevant to their urban and economic context, appropriate to their users while being environmentally sound.