Zig-zag
Augustin Cornet (FR)
Chloé Duflos (FR)
architects
Europan 10 Alès
winner
A unifying city centre park: the proposal is for a large zigzag shaped urban eco-park, which crosses and naturally incorporates the infrastructure. The garden floor is a surface that is “folded” to link the city’s different neighbourhoods continuously through a single unifying public space. This artificial topography contains and links the required programmes. These programmes enliven the city centre around the new multimodal transport hub with local amenities at strategic points, attractive housing along the garden and city-scale parking lots. The park sits within a necklace of existing green spaces, and creates a landscape structure capable of moulding the city’s development. Through it, the periphery emerges not as a rupture but as a new linear focal point.
This project is connected to the following themes
Mobility - Interface
The arrival of the TGV in the city provides an opportunity for a reorganisation of the station area, with built-up riverbanks and underground car parks on both sides of the rail tracks, connected by a green bridge.
Shared spaces - Link - promenade
Deploying a large urban park that zigzags above the railway lines, the project opens up numerous pathways and cycle tracks that connect the surrounding neighbourhoods.
Nature - Topography / ground
The programme extends along a continuous artificial ground that plays on the motif of a double embankment around the railway cluster. This new topography becomes a linking element within in the periphery and re-establishes a dialogue with the territory, offering new views towards the Cévennes.