From ideas to process-projects
Europan 13 - Saint-Brieuc (FR)
« Landscape Focus »
Project strategy family:
- Ecological connections
- Inclusive morphologies
- Inventive typologies
- Reinterpreted heritage
- Urban articulations
Process category:
- Direct order processes
- Competitive processes
- Co-creative processes
- Collaborative processes
- Participative processes
- Participation of the Living processes
- Adaptative legal framework processes
Authors: Atelier Iris Chervet
Client(s): City of Saint-Brieuc, Saint-Brieuc Armor Agglomeration, CAUE
Dates: 2015-2024
Driving forces: Team
Site
Saint-Brieuc (FR)
SCALE XL/S SIZE 350ha / 6ha
A strategy is being sought for Saint-Brieuc for an urban transformation through a relationship between land and sea in terms of landscape, urban routes and public spaces.
Geographical features must be taken into account: the land relief and the slopes, the protection of nature, the town’s identity and link to the sea, the interweaving of functions and uses, the presence of large infrastructures, from the territory to the local.
Awarded Idea
Project - Ideas
Landscape Focus
REVEALING NATURAL DYNAMICS
"The project opens the territory to the diversity of its landscapes, through its three incised valleys revealing the scale of the site’s natural geography, in particularby clearing the hillsides to make this landscape of the valleys visible.
Multiple projects are possible in a long-term vision, including partial deforestation of valleys, which initiates a cycle of re-use of material (the wood) to develop public spaces in the city centre."
Project Strategy
Family: Ecological connections
REPOSITIONING THE CITY CENTRE AND ITS PUBLIC SPACES ALONG A LAND-SEA AXIS
The winning project opens the territory to the diversity of its landscapes, and in particular the three incised valleys that cross the city. The strategy proposed to reveal the scale of the site’s natural geography, in particular by clearing the hillsides to make the landscape of the valleys visible.
The method is based on the identification of multiple projects possible in a long-term vision, including partial deforestation of valleys, which initiates a cycle of re-use of material to develop public spaces. This wood can be used on site to reintegrate valleys in urban routes and to develop public spaces in the city centre.
The Guide Plan is an evolving reference document, a tool for reading public spaces in the city centre. The idea is, at the territorial scale, to put the story of the city centre back in the land-sea axis and to propose an approach of the interfaces with the larger landscape; and at the level of the city centre, to specify the long-term orientations on the public space and the short- and medium-term action program.
The team proposes a “toolbox” on the orientations in terms of planning, an action plan per sector, and communication documents for the general public. The Guide Plan provides the guideline for future development, and leads the City to the operational phases. The continuity with the winning project mainly lies in the approach and in the method. The idea is to have the territorial concepts of the competition project “get back down” to the scale of the city centre and the public space.
The priority operational project on public spaces in the city centre involves an evolution of mobility towards a partial pedestrianization of the city centre, enhances commercial activities, and makes the Place de la Grille more readable as a geographical interface between the harbour and the plateau. The project, representing the urban strategy and the Guide Plan recommendations, places the historic heart in the land-sea axis by staging the topography going down to the harbour and by using materials evoking the landscapes of the Armorican coastline.
Process
Category(ies): Competitive processes, Collaborative processes, Participation of the Living processes
Competitive processes
Following the competition, the city of Saint-Brieuc issued a restricted call for tenders to the 3 Europan rewarded teams to develop a Guide Plan for public spaces in the city centre. The contract was awarded to the winning team (Atelier Iris Chervet).
Collaborative processes
In developing the Guide Plan for public spaces, the team worked with various local stakeholders, including the Saint-Brieuc Armor urban community and the Council for Architecture, Urban Planning and Environment (CAUE) to define the guidelines and priorities for action.
Participation of the Living processes
On the territorial scale, the team repositioned the narrative of the city centre along the land-sea axis and proposed an approach based on interfaces with the larger landscape.
