Underground Space & Transitions Committee

A Committee devoted to understanding and promoting underground space

A space for projects and an underutilised resource

This Committee’s core purpose is to promote rational use of underground space, particularly in urban environments.

As well as engineers, it speaks to urban planners, architects and developers, providing assistance, arguments, references and ideas for making greater use of underground space, in particular as part of the drive for sustainable urban development.

'Ville10D' National Research Project - City of Ideas

Another of the Committee’s aims is to guide research and policy initiatives (such as the Ville10D national research project), to and support all kinds of research liable to yield recommendations, methods or information tools that promote broader awareness of underground space and its potential.

Learn about the Ville10D project

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On 16 November 2017, immediately following the AFTES Congress, the Committee hosted a fourth event devoted to underground planning and architecture: “Underground Architecture and Planning – Building the Future”.

View congress proceedings (French version)

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Working Group information

Goals
Members
History

Underground space - The last available reservoir for urban development

Promoting underground space by:

Gathering and disseminating available information.
Structuring research and debate to include all relevant professions.
Encouraging and coordinating academic research in multiple disciplines.
Arranging continuing education seminars in partnership with specialist organizations.
Using audiovisual communication technology to reach the broadest possible audience, producing films, publishing and effectively distributing books and papers, in particular to relevant NGOs and educational institutions.

Underground Space concerns:

01

Elected officials and space managers

The aim is to better integrate this new dimension into development and urban planning programmes. As well as travel and parking, underground space can be used for storage, disposal and indeed most urban functions, releasing space on the surface. This in turn provides opportunities to reclaim the surface for the benefit of our homes, neighbourhoods and environment.

02

Land developers faced with a lack of space and the constraints of the urban fabric

For land developers, underground space offers the solution for developing networks and integrating multiple urban functions (e.g. traffic, exchanges, trade, culture, leisure, etc.) in the same place. This lets them provide more services and activities, thereby strengthening their development projects’ economic fundamentals.

03

Contractors expected to prove they can offer solutions

For contractors, this reservoir of available space offers endless opportunities for building and/or operating all kinds of facilities and infrastructures.

Clé de Sol - A national project to roll out utility corridors

Background

This project was borne out of the contradiction between the obvious benefits of grouping together utilities that are usually buried separately (e.g. space savings, reduced disruption and works-related costs, concerted management, streamlined maintenance, etc.) and the extreme reluctance to actually implement the concept, which seems to be considered only for small, tightly controlled spaces.

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Utilities as a catalyst for underground urban planning

Pierre Duffaut and Monique Labbé - Excerpt from Tunnels et Ouvrages Souterrains, July-August 1995, no. 130, p. 255-260

In his novel The First Century after Beatrice, Amin Maalouf notes “the word ‘network’ conjures up a sense of mystery, ambiguity and teasing”, and “a kind of invisible thread connected us”; he is naturally referring to networks of people, as the tangible ‘threads’ of infrastructure networks are invisible only when they are underground.

COMES Members

Name	Entity
Bruno BARROCA	University - COMES President
Patrick BERTHOLON	Architect
Bernard BIZET
Laetitia COMITO-BERTRAND
Daniel DA SILVA LEITE	SYSTRA – Noisy-Champs – Ligne 15 Sector Manager
Michel DEFFAYET	Director of Tunnel Studies Center
Youssef DIAB	Professor - University Paris East - Scientific Director of EIVP
Martine DROZDZ
François DUBERTRET
Michel GERARD
Marion GIRODO
Jean-Paul GODARD	Honorary executive officer RATP / AFTES
Eric GOMEZ	BRGM
Michaël GONZVA
Maurice GUILLAUD
Pierre GURS	Consultant
Monique LABBE	Architect D.P.L.G
Gérard LABRIT
Katia LAFFRECHINE	Director of the Urban Engineering Department at UPEM
Alain MERCUSOT	AFTES Technical Secretary
Philippe MILLARD	ETEC / Consultant - President of the AFTES Congress
Denis MORAND
Olivier PIERRE	Young member / EIFFAGE Line 16 - Work engineer
Jean PHILIPPE
Matthieu PIHOUEE
Jean PIRAUD
Marc-Emmanuel PRIVAT	Ministry of Defense
Christian RICHAGNEUX	BRGM
Jonathan RUTHERFORD
Karim SELOUANE	Environmental Projects Director, VINCI Construction
Blaise SOUFFACHE	Professor
Arnaud TAILLANDIER
Pierre UTUDJIAN	Architect
Hervé VADON	Architect * STRATES
Alexis VILETTE	Young member / EIFFAGE Line 16 - Work engineer
Olivier VION	AITES
Frédéric WALET	Deputy Director General EGIS Structure and Environment - EGIS Tunnels Director

Underground urban planning - One hundred years of history

The architect Edouard Utudjian emerged as the true precursor to the concept of underground planning in the 1930s, building on earlier contributions from the prefect Baron Haussmann (e.g. inspectable sewers in 1865-1900) and the architect Hénard (notably his “underground street” project, see opposite). Edouard Utudjian set up and ran the underground planning research and coordination group, GECUS, followed by its international counterpart, CPITUS, which hosted five international congresses. He developed “Le Monde Souterrain”, a French-language journal that would later become “Les Travaux Souterrains”, as well as publishing a large encyclopaedia of underground planning. His crowning achievement was having architects collaborate with engineers, but his work unfortunately ended with his death in the early 1970’s.

The OECD took up the torch in Washington in 1970, recommending that efforts be made in each member nation to make underground works faster and cheaper. In 1972, national associations began to emerge, including AFTES in France. The international federation ITA-AITES was created in 1974.

The Scandinavian countries put special emphasis on planning for underground usages, notably hosting two congresses in 1977 and 1980 devoted to underground storage of foodstuffs, hydrocarbons, and heating or cooling energy. The University of Minneapolis School of Mines opened an underground space research centre and launched the journal “Underground Space”. Japan, Australia, China and the Netherlands followed suit, organising conferences on a variety of underground usages. An appetite for energy savings prompted research into partially or wholly buried buildings, particularly in extreme climates.

In 1977, the French National Geological Service, BRGM, initiated research (in the form of a doctoral thesis by Jacques Brégeon) into underground development as a tool for land-use management and urban planning.

In 1988, Centre for Research and Studies in Paris and the Ile de France (CREPIF) organised a two-day event focussing on the French capital’s underground space. This was the starting point for the “Espace Souterrain” industry association, established by Jacqueline Beaujeu-Garnier, Chair of the Société de Géographie, the prefect Maurice Doublet, the architect Martin Utudjian, Pierre Duffaut and Jacques Brégeon. More recently, in 1995, an “Underground Space and Planning” congress was held in Paris, reflecting the spirit of the five pre-1970 CPITUS congresses as well as the five congresses organised by the new movement.

The 1997 congress in Montreal went by the simple name “Underground Space”; it set the stage for the official establishment of ACUUS, a new international association of underground planning research centres. The most recent ACUUS congress was held in November 2019, in Hong Kong, with the next edition scheduled for 2021, in Helsinki.

In 2005, the “Espace Souterrain” association joined AFTES, which became the Association Française des Tunnels et de l’Espace Souterrain (French Tunnelling and Underground Space Association).

Working Group Information