Socio-economic objectives:

- To carry out the land cleansing of the zone begun in the Thirties.

- To demolish only the irremediable buildings, i.e. those whose cost of repairing would exceed half of the cost of a new building.

- To rehouse in the district most of the families dislodged either because of demolitions, or because of the dedensification.

- To install or remake the roadway systems and the networks (cleansing, water, electricity, public lighting.)

- To install the equipment socio-collectives necessary to the life of the district (dispensary, hammam, nursery school…)

- To insert the artisanal and commercial activities likely to on the spot improve the rate of employment.

- To build residences of average standing to accommodate populations with high incomes.

to reallocate the monuments of the district to sociocultural activities, adapted to their structure and contributing to their revalorization.

- to reconstitute the old screen viaire and to take again the traditional urban architecture

- to reinterpret traditional typology with patio and to re-use the reasons for architecture of the Medina.

The design and the execution of the project were ensured by the Association of Safeguard of the Medina (ASM) and the Agency of rehabilitation and urban renovation (ARRU). It is composed of the following elements:

- Land Cleansing, demolition and rebuilding.

- Repair of the ways and various networks.

- Restoration of municipal or private constructions.

- Construction of new residences of the economic type, having all the municipal equipment.

- Creation of constructions on the part of the private promoters.

- In the socio-economic field, social mixing, the solidarity of the various layers of the population and the mixture of activities. This is not, in fact, that the reflection of the social organization “traditional”, founded on the polysociality (cohabitation of the rich person and the poor) and polyfonctionnement. In the space field, integration results in the urban continuity, memory of the city, obtained by the respect of the old gauges and layouts of roadway system.Characteristics of the two phases of the project:

• The first section of the project whose studies started in 1972 and whose end of realization took place in 1977, constitutes an important operation for several reasons:

- Ella succeeded in stopping the process of annexation of this low part of the Medina to fabric of the European type of Tunis, calling into question the preceding design of rebuilding.

- It reintroduced the horizontal frame of houses with patio in this fabric of the Medina.

- It constituted the first concretization of a sum of studies undertaken by the ASM and the hope of an inversion of the tendency to the decline of the medina.

Result of these characteristics, the rehabilitation of this district, in its first section was worth the price of Architecture of Aga Khan in 1983.The project of Hafsia in its second section was conceived like element of continuity of the first phase as well at the socio-economic level as with level of urban integration. It is while being based on the experiment, the evaluation and results of the first section which the project Hafsia 2 was elaborate in 1981 and of which work in taken end in 1992. The continuation of the project in the same spirit of the first phase, was worth it price Aga Khan 1995.

The land streamlining:

The land streamlining of the district and the acquisition of the grounds for the establishment of the networks and the utility services

Infrastructures:

The programme of intervention realized within the framework of this project related to the installation, the renewal of the various networks (cleansing, drinking water, gas, public lighting) and the coating of the roadway system. The overall costs of this action are estimated at 0.8 million dinars.

The restoration:

This operation related to the construction of 234 residences, 107 trade and 24 offices. It made it possible, also, to produce a certain number of utility services of which a dispensary, a nursery school, an hammam as well as a place of collection of the household refuse. This operation mobilized nearly 4.8 million dinars.

The rehabilitation:

The operations of municipal rehabilitation, requiring an envelope of about 2.3 million dinars, have the common objective to improve the conditions of habitat of the tenants of the municipal buildings. Besides these operations, actions were entrusted to the private promoters eager to give in state and to improve comfort of their housing. These loans, intended initially for the owners of the residences, located inside the district of Hafsia, were extended to the inhabitants of the whole of the medina and its suburbs.