L'Harchi

Urban development projects

LA REOLE WORKSITE

Urban waving

     La Réole is a small town whose medieval past gives it an atypical charm and contributes to its landscape identity. The city has indeed developed in stages over the centuries, following the limits formed by the very marked relief of the landscape. However, the often sloping streets make the path of passers-by complex and access from one space to another difficult. The city thus fragmented is then unequally invested by the inhabitants, and in the absence of a better use of these, the different ventilations of the city constitute more places of passage than places of stop and relaxation. This is due in particular to the excessive presence of vehicles, on which the inhabitants have become dependent and which clutter the streets and make pedestrian traffic dangerous. The poetry of the place is then impacted. On the other hand, the fact is that the city is sorely lacking a meeting point for the inhabitants as well as for the travelers, to the detriment of the dynamism and the attractiveness of the city.

     The challenge is therefore to work on the upgrading of the city center by the treatment and enhancement of certain squares or key passages of La Réole. The urban project then takes the form of a couture effect of the city aimed at reunifying La Réole by restoring its place to pedestrians through a desire to make streets where walking and strolling will mark the new uses of the center and or the poetry of the place. reaffirmed by its vegetation. This is accompanied in particular by various urban developments, such as the installation of benches or games for children in the squares, and the greening of the small adjacent streets. Thus the objective is to make the uses of spaces and the wandering within the city more pleasant. Particular attention will be given to vehicle access. Some streets are treated in order to make road traffic more fluid, while others are the subject of a unification and treatment of the ground as well as pedestrian exclusivity in order to promote the circulation of inhabitants.

Multigenerational center - conceptual architecture

In addition to the city’s couture project, there is the creation of an attractive center within the city of La Réole. In this proposal, this project takes the form of a multi-generational place, where children, adults and seniors can  see each other, meet, or even interact. It hosts a mixed program which consists of workspaces allowing co-working between students or workers, spaces for relaxation and interaction to promote social ties, associative spaces ideal in particular for retirees looking for activities, as well as a daycare to help young parents in their active life.

The choice of the location of the project as well as that of its stratified volumetry echoes the marked relief of La Réole and gives the opportunity to link the rue Lamar, in which it is located, to the residential district located above. This project is therefore an opportunity to enhance the landscape identity of the city while being part of the sewing issue carried by the urban planning project. Accompanied by a requalification of the street by a treatment of the ground, it introduces in a narrow alley a new public space, dynamic and evolving.

Through this project, a connection is made between old and contemporary both in its programming and in its volumetry and materiality. Indeed, on a base imitating traditional stone, very present in the old center, rests a wooden frame structure, partially wrapped in a polycarbonate skin. The framework thus apparent gives it the impression of an unfinished building, leaving room for great freedom of development. Interior and exterior then intermingle, allowing visual or spatial continuity between the spaces on the different floors.