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Investigation of housing adaptability is related to understanding factors that influence project transformation. Factors may be associated with the design and project stage as also alternative uses to existing buildings. To structure methodology for criteria analysis of adaptability, the research aims to verify the importance level of factors related to adaptability and flexibility context in architecture.

Employing a multicriteria analysis and a diagnosis performed with architecture professionals, criteria importance identified in a bibliographic survey is contacted.

With harmonious results, key elements highlighted in the diagnosis are discussed. Adaptability and flexibility are mainly related to balance in the design of spaces and their connections, so the user can have control administrating the organization of their habitat.

As a complex subject, involving legal, social and cultural issues, the multicriteria method supports the scientific analysis of data. The results can be used in a practical case study as assessment of housing adaptability and flexibility, as a useful tool to decision support in architectural project.

David Fée contrasts the revival of the New Towns principles under various forms in the UK over the last 20 years with the absence of debate in France. He first reviews the history of the creation of the New Towns and their iconic status in the new French Fifth Republic born in 1958. Then, he examines the housing situation today which on the face of it would warrant the development of new settlements to meet the housing needs of the country. This paradox is then accounted for by referring to a different demographic context to the 1960s and 1970s and to the transfer of planning powers from the 1980s on from central to local government. These are deemed to be incompatible with a new top-down planning experiment on the size of New Towns. He then moves on to the issue of contemporary official planning principles that emphasise sustainability and densification that are thought to run against the possibility of building on green fields. This is compounded by the decision of many councils to accommodate new housing in the shape of ecoquartiers (eco-neighbourhoods) or environmentally sensitive urban extensions built by private and public developers in keeping with the local development plan. Finally, the question of public opinion and New Towns is raised and he argues that their association in the public’s mind with post-war high-rise urban extensions makes it difficult to repeat the experiment.

The development of public art in French New Towns in the 1970s and 1980s was one of the most spectacular forms of state intervention in urban policy. Along with the new architecture programmes, the hundreds of works of art that adorn the public realm of the French New Towns help to differentiate them from the grands ensembles. This public art, which was highly publicised at the time, represents a heritage intrinsically linked to the urban history of New Towns but also to the history of French cultural policies at the end of the twentieth century. Artistic and town planning innovations underlie many public art projects. Artists and town planners participated, on a city scale, in the cultural developments that sought to respond to the expectations of the May 1968 crisis. In New Towns, the role of art was not simply to provide a backdrop to beautify the city but also to contribute to the success of new urban neighbourhoods. This involved placing visual landmarks in the urban space, confronting the residents with living art (painted walls, sculpted staircases, light paths, etc.).

The appropriation of these works of art by the public and councils was far from unanimous. It was only at the beginning of the twenty-first century that a heritage reflection emerged and led to a list of works of art being drawn up, with a view to protecting them. With the disappearance of state supervision over certain New Towns (1998–2002), damaged works has become a stigma in the public realm. A policy of restoration is being therefore introduced in certain New Towns, with public art participating in the identity of councils that do not hesitate to present themselves as ‘contemporary towns’ and take on the restoration or achievement of certain works that they now consider to be their heritage.

Launched in the 1960s, the nine French New Towns are generally considered as a pragmatic response to the urban growth of the Paris region, before it was extended as a national policy to other regions (Merlin, 1997). If their creation is usually placed in the continuity of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City Movement and of previous New Towns experiments, especially those conducted in England, this historical lineage has never been appreciated in terms of architectural and urban research. Were the French New Towns projects formulated against these early ideas and models or, on the contrary, planned in light of them? Moreover, what are the main characteristics of their projects, their points of resemblance and particularities? These questions, often raised by observers, cannot be answered without a comprehensive knowledge of each New Town’s story, which is not yet available. But a renewed comprehension of their common history can be proposed by analysing their creation in light of the French urban debate of the twentieth century, and by giving special attention to two housing projects which, in Évry and Le Vaudreuil, were presented as ‘landmark operations of contemporary urban planning’ (New Towns Program, 1971).

In the space of 50 years, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (SQY) has seen a variety of urban development contexts. In the 1970s, the initial master plan revolved around a hierarchical organisation of hubs, and the priority went to the economic question. It also created a specific public road system, along with housing districts endowed with a wide range of amenities to provide a new ‘way of life’. Fifty years later, a number of points typical of SQY’s specific urban nature can be identified. This chapter mentions three of them: an urban ‘dividing line’, the organisation of urbanisation into small towns (urban units) and the aesthetic and environmental qualities of the town. These urban planning qualities have been addressed by the recent Comprehensive Local Development Plan (2016–2018). However, other points such as public transport, driving conditions, nightlife and quality of the green spaces are the topics discussed by experts and citizens in the local conversation.

Reflecting their extensive domestic programmes, the UK and France became major exporters of New Town planning expertise during the later twentieth century. Yet each country delivered its expertise in markedly different ways. Drawing on the UK’s own New Towns programme begun in 1946, a public-sector international New Town planning agency, the British Urban Development Services Unit, was created in 1975. However, it quickly proved unsuccessful and was abandoned in 1978. Instead, national expertise was exported by UK private planning consultants, with strong government encouragement. By contrast France, whose own Villes Nouvelles programme started in 1969, created a single public-sector planning agency, the Groupement d’intéret économique Villes Nouvelles de France, in 1984 that operated successfully overseas (latterly under a different name) until 2013. The chapter briefly considers the international efforts of the two countries, targeting oil-exporting countries, their respective former colonial empires and elsewhere. It also interprets their different approaches in light of their different political histories. Thus, the UK was much earlier affected by neo-liberal, pro-market political ideologies that instinctively favoured private- rather than public-sector approaches. This was especially so given the already established position of its private planning consultancies both in international work and in preparing the original master plans of many UK New Towns. In France, by contrast, the public sector remained strong and structured the export of planning expertise while private planning consultancies were much less important. The chapter ends by briefly considering the wider impacts of the two countries’ different approaches.

This paper aims to investigate the role of dynamic capabilities in the Information Technology (IT) Governance view framework and explores the relationship between three domains of IT governance (Strategy, Management and Operations) and firm performance.

In this study, the authors used a mixed methods approach and using a survey instrument and its validation with interviews, to collect data from 134 successful European SMEs in the multi-country setting of Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain and the UK.

The findings show that various IT governance mechanisms function as dynamic capabilities and are directly associated with firm performance. The impact of each mechanism is different.

This study highlights the relationship between IT governance acumens and organisational performance. It contributes to the field of IT Governance Framework in management, and the results may be generalisable to wider economies and different organisation types.

Shortly before the Second World War, a woman who had never accepted her orphan status, Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, nicknamed ‘Little Coco’ by her father and known as ‘Coco’ to her relatives, became the first women in history to build a world-class industrial empire. By 1935, Coco, a fashion designer and industry captain, was employing more than 4,000 workers and had sold more than 28,000 dresses, tailored jackets and women's suits. Born into a poor family and raised in an orphanage, she enjoyed an intense social life in Paris in the 1920s, rubbing shoulders with artists, creators and the rising stars of her time.

Thanks to her entrepreneurial skills, she was able to innovate in her methods and in her trendsetting approach to fashion design and promotion. Coco Chanel was committed and creative, had the soul of an entrepreneur and went on to become a world leader in a brand new sector combining fashion, accessories and perfumes that she would help shape. By the end of her life, she had redefined French elegance and revolutionized the way people dressed.