From enclosure ‘strategies’ to the ‘tactics’ of inhabiting

Focused on Vauban, this article seeks to go beyond the postcard image of this sustainable neighbourhood (as crafted by urban marketing) to show the sociality taking place on site, understood through its emerging spatial forms. Because Vauban is moving: it is moving along a double and inverted dynamic of enclosure and disclosure (Capron, 2006). An enclave ‘strategy’ on one side, which finds its origins in the history of the site – formerly squatted barracks – and isolates spatial ruptures; a withdrawal, which reinforces the ecological and communal script of the neighbourhood. And, conversely, a disclosure through the usage of the site, following three ‘tactics’ of inhabiting: “art de faire” against, “art de faire” pro and “art de faire” otherwise (de Certeau, 1980).