The big forgotten architects of the Rebsamen commission aiming to lift the brakes on construction

The Ministry of Ecological Transition revealed, Tuesday, June 1, the list of the first 32 members of the Rebsamen commission. Completely excluded from the key players who must establish a diagnosis of the current obstacles to the construction of housing and propose to the government measures capable of lifting them, the architects are alarmed by this decision.

Can the government seek to lift the brakes on the construction of new homes without taking their designers into account?

Even though the 25.000 architectural firms that establish building and development permits throughout the territory, are, with the contracting authorities, the first to be involved in the subjects to be addressed by this commission, their representatives are not have not yet been asked to join this commission. This list again reveals a real problem of interministerial coordination in decision-making. Our profession depending on the Ministry of Culture, is once too forgotten by the Ministry of Ecological Transition.

Only six professionals at this time will bring up the problems in the field including Alexandra François-Cuxac, past-president of the Federation of real estate developers (FPI), and Olivier Salleron, president of the French Building Federation (FFB). Since the start of the pandemic and the first confinement, our professional organizations have been meeting and yet together alerting the public authorities to the crisis that was going to hit the construction sector.

To only give the floor to project owners and companies on this subject is to forget the third, central link, which is project management. At the end of the confinements suffered by the French in sometimes difficult conditions, the quality of housing is an even more burning subject than ever before and the Lemas report indicated a few months ago how much this quality depends on the work of architects. How can the government today imagine evoking new housing without questioning its designers?

The architectural profession has always shown itself to be a force for proposals. Thus, Unsfa, the first professional organization representing architects, with more than 1 years of experience, has made numerous proposals to increase the number of housing units, with a concern for quality of use of the living environment and the landscape, including recently for the Elan law and within the working groups of 50 housing targets.

She actively participates in the Superior Council of Construction and Energy Efficiency (CSCEE), the Sustainable Building Plan or the EESC and is therefore fully qualified and willing to work within this commission and its success. .

There is still time for the Prime Minister and the Minister for Housing to complete this commission with Mr. Rebsamen, whom we have also seized. The first plenary session of the Rebsamen committee will only be held on Tuesday 8 June and the submission of recommendations next September.