In collaboration with Caractère Spécial Architectures.
A new identity.
The Place de la Boule is being transformed, and a new identity and urban role are emerging for the site. Place de la Boule, a major thoroughfare for the western Paris region, is becoming a gateway to the historic center of Nanterre.
With this in mind, our project is the product, on the one hand, of an urban strategy focused on uses, health and vegetation in the public space, opposite the future Grand Paris Express station; on the other, of a strong architectural conviction about the building as a prow, which becomes a sign rather than a signal, i.e. a medium for symbolic meanings.
In this way, our project contributes to the dynamic transformation of the Place de la Boule.
We sought to bring the slow city and the fast city closer together, to combine traffic flow and automobile nuisance with oases of freshness and moments of tranquility, by creating calming public spaces at the heart of our project (the street, the square, the pops).
In a parallel approach, we are proposing a specific treatment for the prow of the tertiary building, on the square, that goes beyond a purely architectural response.
On the contrary, we want to propose an event, a marker that both symbolizes our environmental approach and conveys our new identity.
A vertical landscape suddenly appears at the crossroads, a cut-and-paste of a wetland garden of irises, moss and ferns.
This composition echoes the presence of the park located at the opposite corner along Avenue Joliot Curie, and is treated as a garden fragment, a folly detached from its original park, incorporating rocks, cascades, cascatelles and sculptures into its layout.
