The current reflection about town-planning takes a growing interest in the inhabitant's sensitive relationships with the town and, more generally of the users. The bonds of the individuals who live in these different urban places are questioned here in their sensorial, poetical, emotional and affective dimensions. Our issue is focused on the role of temporal characteristics inherent in individuals and urban places in order to understand their implication and their influence on the evolution of the affective relationship with a place. The objective of this research is to underline the dynamics of the affective relationships of an individual with a place based on the temporal parameters of the individuals (age, the length of time knowing places) and of the places (historic and urban evolution, daily dynamics). The general hypothesis assumes that there are links between the temporal configuration of the places and the temporal characteristics of the individuals in the evolution of the affective relationship which unite them. We have chosen four urban public spaces because they represent different temporality of conception and they host various functions. Our method is based on three techniques of inquiry (semi-directive interview, questionnaires, and observations). It has permitted us to discover ideal-type figures about the evolution of the affective relationship of the individual with a place. These figures vary in the form of tendencies which have highlighted the fact that it is the individuals with their temporal characteristics who determine the evolution of the affective relationship with a place. Nevertheless, we have underlined that the place has a potential by the affordance (Gibson, 1979) by which the individuals establish their affective relation. The model of the evolution of the affective relationship with a place that we propose is constructed on the affordance of places and also the individuals' temporal characteristics. Thence, we initiate the beginnings of reflections about the possibilities and the limits of the integration of this knowledge in urban practice.
