Restructuring the Place Charles de Gaulle is a major urban project for Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
The Anneau Rouge building, familiar to all travelers passing through the station, now encircles the Place Charles de Gaulle.
This urban enclave hides the station from the city and the city from the station.
In response to this situation, we propose to set the scene for the city and the public building by erecting buildings that create a veritable backdrop on either side of the station entrance.
The Place Charles de Gaulle is thus defined as an extension of the Place Choiseul.
The base of the new buildings is largely open to the city, contributing to the urban activation of the site. The layout of the buildings emphasizes the usual urban routes.
The buildings, anchored in the perspective of Place Choiseul, offer a progressive modenature from the ground to the sky.
Through a succession of superimposed orders, the buildings rise and play on the perspective to soar into the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines sky. Terraces and balconies give pride of place to the landscape, which colonizes all exterior surfaces, correcting excessive minerality and heat islands.
At dusk, the building becomes an urban semaphore, signaling the station’s presence in the wider landscape.
