We’re not building cities. We are scaling the power of people to reshape them.

We are convinced urban transitions won’t come from one big idea — but  from thousands of small, situated actions  Dépasser l’opposition entre planification et spontanéité .

1. That’s what we’re trying to support in France, through a new kind of public-private service.

At Villes Vivantes, we work with municipalities to support citizen-led housing projects — one home, one garden, one block at a time.

Today, we’re involved in over 2’000 of these micro-projects every year across France. And we’re building the tools, methods, and skills to be ready to scale that number to 200’000 per year.

This is what we call gentle densification : small, contextual, often invisible changes that bring new life to existing neighborhoods — without demolition, big project, or rigid planning.

These aren’t anecdotes.

They are the core of tomorrow’s urban R&D.

To explore this path, we’ve developed programs like BIMBY and BUNTI BUNTI, BIMBY : réussir la transformation de nos quartiers pavillonnaires en villages , through which municipalities contract with us to help citizen-led projects.

2. We provide a multifaceted design and coaching service, helping residents imagine, decide, plan, and contract with professionnals to build — and we’re paid based on results : homes actually built, not hours billed.

It’s experimental.

It’s complex.

It’s emerging — project by project.

Here’s a snapshot of what came into our inboxes in just one day :

7:22 —  We want to renovate a 15th-century presbytery with solar, geothermal, and phytoremediation. 

8:09 —  My mother owns a parcel in a development zone. How can we sell it ? 

9:12 —  We rent a house and want to buy it, then add a ground-floor bedroom and bathroom. 

11:37 —  Just bought a poorly insulated house. We’d like to remove walls and renovate. 

12:02 —  We’re thinking about building a small rental at the back of the garden. 

13:53 —  I own a small building — could I add a few units in the yard ? 

14:20 —  Split the land in two or three? Neighbor may offer access. 

15:08 —  I have 2’700m². What’s the best way to divide it ? 

17:42 —  I own half of a 3-unit property. Can I separate and build something new ? 

21:08 —  I have a 1’000m² plot. Could I detach 430m² ? 

3. Scaling this model means inventing a new kind of architectural role.

Not to replace the architect — but to create a complementary path, like general medicine leads to surgery.

A role focused on project flows, delivered by orchestrated teams, equipped with new tools and advanced knowledge systems.

Able to open new options and to support thousands of deeply personalized transformations — with care, quality, and architectural scalability.

4. Organic urbanism isn’t chaos. It’s a system.

Still in development. Already delivering results. And prepared to scale.

On the image below : from one plot and one house to four plots and four homes.

If just 1% of French homeowners engaged in such a project every year, France’s housing needs would be met.