Songs of Chansons D' Haute Ville: Strategies for resilience within a rural heritage landscape

Abstract

Songs of Haute Ville is a culmination of my passions for heritage conservation, landscape architecture, and climate adaptation. The report will identify strategies to build physical and social resilience within a rural French heritage site called Haute Ville. The name means “high town” in French, as the site clings to a hill which overlooks the village of Puget-Ville in the valley below. The site is the original footprint of Puget-Ville, and it remains a wellspring of natural and cultural heritage resources for the town. Within the site's bounds are an 11th-century chapel, a 14th-century castle ruin, and footprints of the medieval village, all nestled within an dense pine-oak forest. In recent decades, the historic site has seen unprecedented damage from droughts and extreme weather impacting the hillside location. Major pathways have been rendered inaccessible due to landslides from eroded soils and rock-slides from destabilized masonry. This damage has impacted the site’s capacity to host visitors and events, which in turn has created ramifications for restoration and fundraising efforts. My Master’s Report will provide typologies for erosion mitigation and acoustic appreciation spaces; designs for re-vitalized entrance areas; and recommendations for native planting and alternative event programming. This project has ties to my personal heritage as well: my grandparents were live-in stewards of for almost four decades, until 2018. I have been fortunate to spend valuable time there throughout my life, exploring the lands, touching the stones, witnessing the hillsides change in wind and sun and rain. As such, has been a great pleasure to write this report, and to share it with my family, who are all intertwined with the site. Songs of Haute Ville aims to showcase strategies for the holistic protection of our shared global heritage. Heritage landscapes are much more than the built environment: they are comprised of the cultural talismans that exist in the ecologies and accumulated memories of the places we hold dear.