On the Road

2007

The site proposed by the city of Rheims is made up of land located along the A4 motorway near the city centre. The issue here focuses on the creation of a new urban highway created by de-classification of this motorway.
The project opts to preserve the motorway's unity rather than chopping it up, based instead on a system of networked micro-centres established along this unifying linear public space.
The proposed treatment of the St-Martin carriageway illustrates this: the re-classified motorway establishes an initial transversal movement, deploying landscaped branches out to a residential area on one side and the park to the other.

2008-…

The proximity and complementarity of the 2 concepts and prize-winning projects of the competition caught the attention of the City and the Effort Rémois, partner operator involved in the process. Together they wished the 2 teams further developed futher the urban project in pre-operational phase, with a view to eventually lead to the implementation of a housing program for each of them. The Effort Rémois gave the mandate for an urban and architectural feasibility study of the Chaussée Saint-Martin area to the group of designers. The Municipality is associated in the progress of this study. The study is subject to thorough consultation with the inhabitants through a neighborhood committee, and the project had to integrate with difficulty the major impact of several decisions concerning the site environment : installation of a mosque and its parking lot to the east, a collective boiler room to the west. An uncertainty about the proposed option for the transformation of the highway infrastructure in urban boulevard still remains on the north shore. A financial pre-assessment then needs to reconfigure the project with more density. The development of the project urban part, prior to the development of architectural feasibility, thus entered in finalisation phase after 3 long years. The team is currently working to the reference plan and prescriptions document.