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The Pause, Paname 2050, is a research project developed as part of the Foundation USM Futures Lab, an initiative driven by understanding the future to create a better world.

The project examines the cultural and spatial transformation of Paris catalysed by the obsolescence of the private car. As automotive infrastructure including highways, tunnels, and arterial networks becomes redundant, the project reframes this shift not as decline but as opportunity, treating dormant infrastructure as a resource for ecological resilience, localism, and participatory urban life.

The research identifies a structural contradiction at the heart of the modern city: infinite growth cannot coexist with finite ecological systems and deepening social inequity. The Pause proposes a reorientation away from dominance over space and towards metabolism of it. Streets, boulevards, and parking structures become layers of potential, enabling citizens to engage, experiment, and cultivate shared agency.

This is approached through the lens of scarcity and abundance. The car's decline leaves behind a surplus of space, networks, and structural capacity. Rather than treating this as limitation, the project reads it as generative. Empty highways become ecological corridors, abandoned parking structures transform into communal fabrication hubs, and underground voids host cultural programmes. Redundancy becomes a design tool, allowing for layered, multi purpose use that supports both ecological regeneration and social experimentation.

Through targeted retrofit strategies, existing infrastructure acts simultaneously as archive and instrument, preserving traces of past consumption while catalysing new civic value. The Pause is not a retreat from ambition but the deliberate construction of a city capable of sustaining equitable, resilient, and meaningful urban life.


Project: Paname, 2050, USM Futures Lab
Location: Paris
Year: 2025
Type: Research