Linear centrality

The town centre area of La Courneuve is impossible to identify from its density, and suffers from the layout of the surrounding infrastructures, yet it still remains deeply marked by an industrial heritage bearing evidence of former glory. The project proposes to enhance an important, oriented public space combining municipal functions and cultural values through a reorientation of the main facade of the Town Hall, thanks to a new Hall building and the conversion of the Mecano factory, which vouches for local history, into a cultural facility. Centrality is thus rendered clear and meaningful. The project asserts the role of the public space as the basis from which the identity-giving fragments are reconstituted. The linear Square is formed by a “facade-veil” serving as a link between the facilities created while offering visual and functional permeability and the support for a new urban sequence. The project highlights the routes across the site. The new north-south pedestrian link goes through the rehabilitated factory and the east-west axis is supplemented by parallel connections. The housing typology is based on a re-evaluated scale of intervention and on the image of respiration, alternating mineral and vegetable. A balance is sought between low-rise blocks of flats and individual houses, favouring dual orientation, thus offering diverse typologies (split-level or studio flats, workshops). In this way, density can be implanted opposite the public space.