par Souviron, Jean 
Président du jury Devos, Rika
Promoteur Khan, Ahmed Z.
Publication Non publié, 2022-09-02
Président du jury Devos, Rika
Promoteur Khan, Ahmed Z.
Publication Non publié, 2022-09-02
Thèse de doctorat
| Résumé : | Glazing is both an ordinary and an essential building product, which has undergone radical transformations since the post-war period. Simple panes of glass mounted on wooden frames have been progressively replaced by insulating glass units composed of two or even three glass sheets assembled together by a complex combination of aluminium, plastics, composites, metal oxides and hydrophilic substances. At the same time, thermal regulations and environmental labels have led to the emergence of a new socio-technical regime based on a compromise between the modern promise of greater comfort and the need to contain energy demand. Governments and industries have thus promoted the development and spread of new technologies deemed more efficient in the hope of reconciling economic growth and ecological transition.However, the primacy given to the performance over the use phase tends to hide the environmental footprint of the construction sector, whose production plants have constantly expanded their network of natural resource exploitation. Reducing the energy bill of buildings has required the use of more complex products, and the ecological impact of these energy efficiency policies should therefore be questioned. In this respect, I trace the socio-technical trajectory of glazing through a historical and territorial perspective of this product’s life cycle. The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the links between this trajectory and the biosphere, by asking the following question: how have the requirements for energy efficiency materialised throughout the life cycle of glazing and how has this materialisation impacted the biosphere?This thesis is at the crossroads of architectural research, socio-ecological studies, and science and technology studies. I combine archival research, field surveys and inventories of material and energy flows to analyse the socio-ecological trajectory of glazing in the European Union, and more specifically in France and Belgium. Using the methods and tools of the research fields of industrial and territorial ecology, I study the environmental footprint of the glass industry and conduct a life cycle assessment of insulating glass units according to the performance they seek to achieve. I question this performance in relation to architectural strategies and the practices of building users. I thus seek to give the measure of the material transformations caused directly or indirectly by energy efficiency policies and reveal how the latter condition our relationship to the environment and constrain, through their material and cultural heritage, the prospects for the evolution of our urban metabolism. |
