Hanane Chater*, Sihem Boucherit
https://doi.org/10.66428/ijppv16i01a009
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Hanane Chater
Institute of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Blida 1, Algeria; Laboratory of Architecture, Urban Environment and Energy Efficiency (LAEEE), Salah Boubnider University Constantine 3, Algeria. – * corresponding author: chater_hanane@univ-blida.dz
Sihem Boucherit
Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Constantine 3, Algeria; Laboratory of Architecture, Urban Environment and Energy Efficiency (LAEEE), Salah Boubnider University Constantine 3, Algeria.
Keywords: urban programming; landscape-object; landscape-subject; coastal urban regeneration in Algeria; planning gaps.
Abstract: Contemporary waterfront projects play a strategic role in urban regeneration and are often framed as showcases of landscape quality. Yet this quality is constructed through a planning rationality that stabilizes the landscape through programmatic orientations, morphological prescriptions, and spatial devices. Drawing on Augustin Berque’s distinction between landscape-object and landscape-subject, Henri Lefebvre’s conceived and lived space, and planning theory on institutional arbitration, this article conceptualizes urban programming as a structuring device mediating between planning and practices. Programming is understood as a decisive moment of selection, prioritization, and stabilization of landscape components rather than merely a technical preliminary stage of design. A convergent mixed-methods study of the Sablettes waterfront promenade in Algiers combines semi-structured interviews with institutional actors and an in-situ photo-questionnaire administered to 308 users. Cross-referencing institutional and user assessments through 30 shared criteria reveals three regimes of gaps: formalization gaps, where strongly valued user expectations are weakly stabilized in programming; arbitration gaps, reflecting institutional prioritization; and exploitation gaps, related to management and maintenance. The article proposes a transferable analytical framework for understanding how planning practice selectively stabilizes landscape qualities while conditioning the emergence of lived landscape experience.