Einladungswettbewerb | 02/2013
Réaménagement urbain
Gewinner
Architektur
BASE | Bien Aménager Son Environnement / Build A Super Environment
Landschaftsarchitektur
Erläuterungstext
Urban Principles
Prepared by the agency uapS, this planning project which is part of our proposal is based on the simple idea that the identity of a city comes from its urban forms. This finding is part of a long tradition of theoretical understanding of the city, to which we attach tradition, and also our practices.
The proposal of Anne-Mie Depuydt and Marcel Smets introduces a strategy, which in theory, seems unassailable: an island between two opposing formal systems must make a synthesis between these two models in order to establish continuity.
The Brossette parcel is framed by two distinct elements: in one part, a walkway with a garden, and the other, large ensembles. Seeking to arrange a harmonious articulation between the two, the urban project proposes to hybridize the two systems.
In this model, the transition occurs smoothly. The district then forms a very coherent ensemble, which seems to obliterate the work of historical stratification.
Based on a method of analysis, our work has sought to further refine the proposed model to enable it to absorb all of the programs and possibly evolve.
It is now about examining the scales and dimensions of each component of the program.
Addressing among other functional aspects, symbolic, urban, perceptual, etc.., the many questions we have asked ourselves led us to seek urban reference systems that can renew our references, expand our logical thoughts, and comfort us in the validity of future proposals. We have then realized that in designing this project, we are situated at the intersection of many morphologies, without literally taking the form of one.
The opportunity that presents itself to us - of defining a new spatial model and to write new scenarios, is obviously very exciting. However, this opportunity requires finesse and accuracy in the analysis of the existing situation, and to meet the requirements in the design of the typology.
The most interesting and eye opening feature of Ilot Brossette, with its porous relationship to urban space, is its ability to be crossed. In this, the success of this project lies in how to leverage and amplify this exceptional condition. To the question "why cross this parcel?” we must construct a response that could be adopted by the community. This response cannot be found within the site programming and the definition of these spaces. The challenge lies in the definition of more than empty volumes. Once these are in place, we have sought to establish permanencies, to activate spaces, to polarize their use.
Definition of Spaces
Comprised partially of free, affordable, social, or student housing, as well as a school, offices, and a café etc. the program is divided into different blocks puncturing the parcel. The definition of each of the spaces is designed to meet programmatic requirements and specific characteristics are associated to each place, in volumetric matter (size, proportions) and atmosphere (light, shadow, materiality, perception). The result is a crossover approach that establishes almost spontaneously the identity of these places. The whole forms a completely new pedestrian area, with different themed gardens, which interact with the architecture. The idea is to create a vast public space and user-friendly unit, which runs through the whole site, connects the different buildings with one another and connects the parcel with its environment.
This space is then guided down differently following a system of gardens, addressing different styles of users, providing different services.
The Garden of students is in the northwest part of the parcel between the school and the Vatel cafe.
Generously furnished, planted and lit, this place is the main public space for socializing and a meeting place for students and others.
The inner courtyard extends Vatel cafe at the southern entrance of the plot, and articulates between pedestrian walkways through the district from north to south: To the west, wide and linear, along the old stone wall to the east, tighter and winding. It is composed of gardens on plateaus, lawns which are practicable and raised. This permits enjoyment of grassed areas in the city center, close to home.
Vatel
Vatel campus is probably the most urban part of the whole project. The 400 students of the school, the 50-room hotel, the restaurant and café, consists of a polarity exerted not only on the Brossette site, but also in the entire city of Nantes. This intention has led us to amplify the collective nature of this element, and to put the public square to the scale of use and attendance that it will not fail to generate on the site. The square thus becomes a place, and this place becomes the link between the Brosette parcel and the neighboring parcels of Brosette and Quai de la Loire. This place opens beyond the area offering views to the other side of the river, the city and its emergence. Inversely, from these points of view, we perceive the scale of the territory.
The volume was defined almost before the program, the shape representing to us the memory of these places. The Vatel School and the Vatel Hotel occupy the base of the ground floor, to either side of the restaurant. The latter is located in the center of the device, accessible both from the square, the hotel lobby and the Vatel School. The hotel is situated along the Loire, it occurs 6 levels above the base. A break darting along the entire height of the hotel separates the functions of the remaining activities of the hotel. Through this break, one perceives all of the floors.
How then to symbolize through architecture the values of Vatel? We tried to restore the art of receiving to the French, which for us signifies a state of mind more than a code, using the given notions, discovering, taking care of details, as many axioms on which to base our choices.
The project is developed as a succession of atmospheres, views, lights, textures, degrees of intimacy, where every moment and in every place the visitor or user can feel unique and part of a whole. The multiplicity of paths, views, depth of field, framing, exacerbated by a play on elevation, participates in the creation of an unexpected sensory event that accompanies de-ambulation or access to rooms.
The materiality of the project also transcribes the notion of discovery. The walls of the building are made of calcareous alabaster or marble onyx. By its mineral character, this space expresses its monumentality and its preciousness, and with the effect of transparency and light, its conviviality.
The bias to have a compact design led us to the emergence of an intangible object, changing, an architecture made of lightness, of glass and finely screened stone. Architecture in which the game is to blur the tangible boundaries of the building, rendering it as a reading of a solid volume in a poetic vagueness and evanescence.
During the day alabaster protects from direct sunlight, while at night it reverses and artificial light is emitted. Everything becomes magical.
Prepared by the agency uapS, this planning project which is part of our proposal is based on the simple idea that the identity of a city comes from its urban forms. This finding is part of a long tradition of theoretical understanding of the city, to which we attach tradition, and also our practices.
The proposal of Anne-Mie Depuydt and Marcel Smets introduces a strategy, which in theory, seems unassailable: an island between two opposing formal systems must make a synthesis between these two models in order to establish continuity.
The Brossette parcel is framed by two distinct elements: in one part, a walkway with a garden, and the other, large ensembles. Seeking to arrange a harmonious articulation between the two, the urban project proposes to hybridize the two systems.
In this model, the transition occurs smoothly. The district then forms a very coherent ensemble, which seems to obliterate the work of historical stratification.
Based on a method of analysis, our work has sought to further refine the proposed model to enable it to absorb all of the programs and possibly evolve.
It is now about examining the scales and dimensions of each component of the program.
Addressing among other functional aspects, symbolic, urban, perceptual, etc.., the many questions we have asked ourselves led us to seek urban reference systems that can renew our references, expand our logical thoughts, and comfort us in the validity of future proposals. We have then realized that in designing this project, we are situated at the intersection of many morphologies, without literally taking the form of one.
The opportunity that presents itself to us - of defining a new spatial model and to write new scenarios, is obviously very exciting. However, this opportunity requires finesse and accuracy in the analysis of the existing situation, and to meet the requirements in the design of the typology.
The most interesting and eye opening feature of Ilot Brossette, with its porous relationship to urban space, is its ability to be crossed. In this, the success of this project lies in how to leverage and amplify this exceptional condition. To the question "why cross this parcel?” we must construct a response that could be adopted by the community. This response cannot be found within the site programming and the definition of these spaces. The challenge lies in the definition of more than empty volumes. Once these are in place, we have sought to establish permanencies, to activate spaces, to polarize their use.
Definition of Spaces
Comprised partially of free, affordable, social, or student housing, as well as a school, offices, and a café etc. the program is divided into different blocks puncturing the parcel. The definition of each of the spaces is designed to meet programmatic requirements and specific characteristics are associated to each place, in volumetric matter (size, proportions) and atmosphere (light, shadow, materiality, perception). The result is a crossover approach that establishes almost spontaneously the identity of these places. The whole forms a completely new pedestrian area, with different themed gardens, which interact with the architecture. The idea is to create a vast public space and user-friendly unit, which runs through the whole site, connects the different buildings with one another and connects the parcel with its environment.
This space is then guided down differently following a system of gardens, addressing different styles of users, providing different services.
The Garden of students is in the northwest part of the parcel between the school and the Vatel cafe.
Generously furnished, planted and lit, this place is the main public space for socializing and a meeting place for students and others.
The inner courtyard extends Vatel cafe at the southern entrance of the plot, and articulates between pedestrian walkways through the district from north to south: To the west, wide and linear, along the old stone wall to the east, tighter and winding. It is composed of gardens on plateaus, lawns which are practicable and raised. This permits enjoyment of grassed areas in the city center, close to home.
Vatel
Vatel campus is probably the most urban part of the whole project. The 400 students of the school, the 50-room hotel, the restaurant and café, consists of a polarity exerted not only on the Brossette site, but also in the entire city of Nantes. This intention has led us to amplify the collective nature of this element, and to put the public square to the scale of use and attendance that it will not fail to generate on the site. The square thus becomes a place, and this place becomes the link between the Brosette parcel and the neighboring parcels of Brosette and Quai de la Loire. This place opens beyond the area offering views to the other side of the river, the city and its emergence. Inversely, from these points of view, we perceive the scale of the territory.
The volume was defined almost before the program, the shape representing to us the memory of these places. The Vatel School and the Vatel Hotel occupy the base of the ground floor, to either side of the restaurant. The latter is located in the center of the device, accessible both from the square, the hotel lobby and the Vatel School. The hotel is situated along the Loire, it occurs 6 levels above the base. A break darting along the entire height of the hotel separates the functions of the remaining activities of the hotel. Through this break, one perceives all of the floors.
How then to symbolize through architecture the values of Vatel? We tried to restore the art of receiving to the French, which for us signifies a state of mind more than a code, using the given notions, discovering, taking care of details, as many axioms on which to base our choices.
The project is developed as a succession of atmospheres, views, lights, textures, degrees of intimacy, where every moment and in every place the visitor or user can feel unique and part of a whole. The multiplicity of paths, views, depth of field, framing, exacerbated by a play on elevation, participates in the creation of an unexpected sensory event that accompanies de-ambulation or access to rooms.
The materiality of the project also transcribes the notion of discovery. The walls of the building are made of calcareous alabaster or marble onyx. By its mineral character, this space expresses its monumentality and its preciousness, and with the effect of transparency and light, its conviviality.
The bias to have a compact design led us to the emergence of an intangible object, changing, an architecture made of lightness, of glass and finely screened stone. Architecture in which the game is to blur the tangible boundaries of the building, rendering it as a reading of a solid volume in a poetic vagueness and evanescence.
During the day alabaster protects from direct sunlight, while at night it reverses and artificial light is emitted. Everything becomes magical.