Augmented Materials

TEAM DATA

Team Representative: Camille Ricard (FR) – architect; Associates: Etienne Henry (FR), Axel Adam-Couralet (FR), Lucas Geoffriau (FR), Xin Luo (FR) – architects
Contributors: Aurélien Ramos (FR) – landscaper; Sébastien Delpont (FR), Kathleen Boquet (FR) – engineers; Marc-Elian Duffrene (FR) – urbanist

MOONWALKLOCAL Collective, 3 rue Ferbos 33800 Bordeaux (FR) 
+33 5 57 67 16 24 - mwl@moonwalklocal.fr – moonwalklocal.fr

See the complete listing of portraits here
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^{L. Geoffriau, A. Adam-Couralet, E. Henry, X. Luo, K. Boquet, S. Delpont, C. Ricard, M.-E. Duffrene & A. Ramos}

VIDEO (by the team)

INTERVIEW

1. How did you form the team for the competition?

The architectural collective MOONWALKLOCAL has set up a multidisciplinary team including the environmental consulting firm GREENFLEX and doctoral landscape architect Aurélien Ramos in order to meet the territorial, social and environmental challenges of the site.

2. How do you define the main issue of your project, and how did you answer on this session main topic: the place of productive activities within the city?

The site is an industrial enclave in the heart of the metropolis and raises the issue of the renewal of the productive city in the urban fabric. Moreover, the issue of ecological transition calls for the transformation of a waste-producing business district into a resourceful and productive district.
The project is based on the premise that it is the existing material, social and natural resources that make up the territory, forming a productive ecosystem with high potential (contrary to a planning logic).
Through the activation of synergies and the circulation of the identified resources, the site’s productive capacities are increased. The circular economy generated transforms the site into a bank of know-how (notably with the valorization of crafts in the city) and materials (bio-sourced, reuse and valorization of living soil).
Based on "catalyst" programs that transform the area from the interior, the "South Garonne Plain" becomes an exemplary resource district for the Bordeaux Metropolis of tomorrow, through a project that is evolving, hybrid and adaptable to the needs of the site.

3. How did this issue and the questions raised by the site mutation meet?

The stakes of the site's mutation and the rich potential of its productive ecosystem very quickly resonated with the issues of resources, mobility and equity relating to this second session of the Productive Cities. The multidisciplinary analysis of the site, its meticulous surveying and the meeting with the various public players in the area enabled us to bring the themes of the Europan competition into dialogue with the specific features of the Plaine Sud Garonne.
 

4. Have you treated this issue previously? What were the reference projects that inspired yours?

We have already approached this problem from the point of view of architecture, the origin of materials and know-how (projects made from materials from deconstruction, experiences of participative building sites in raw earth, mapping of local resources). This edition of Europan was an excellent opportunity for us to study this issue on a wider scale.
We draw our references from vernacular architecture, from the work of players in the bio-based material sector (raw earth, plant fibres, solid stone) and from research on re-use carried out by architectural agencies such as Bellastock (Ademe REPAR and REPAR 2), the "Faire avec" collective, Rotor with, in particular, the creation of dynamics on a European scale (Interreg NWE - FCRBE project) but also the "Matière grise" exhibition by Encore heureux.
More broadly, we were inspired by the innovative dynamics linked to the circular economy at the territorial level.
 

5. Urban-architectural projects like the ones in Europan can only be implemented together with the actors through a negotiated process and in time. How did you consider this issue in your project?

The aim of the project "Matières augmentées" is to generate a cyclical process of transformation of the site involving companies and public actors according to several temporalities:

• Time 0 corresponds to the activation of existing synergies on the site thanks to the creation of a Synergies and Reuse Pavilion, which initiates the negotiation process between the actors, manages the land and carries the project.
• Time 1 is based on the medium-term availability of a 3.5-ha plot of land, in order to set up prefiguration areas occupied by "makers". These spaces are part of a productive framework based on the landscape structures of the territory (hedges, woodland, ditches and streams): it constitutes the basis of biodiversity resources. Existing and future functions are and will be added to this developed and increased network, offering support for soft mobility.
• Time 2 focuses on the construction of the site with reversible architectures, which can last 5, 10, or 50 years depending on the needs: federating facilities and small business premises built by VSEs that are structured around bio-sourced/re-use construction.
• Time 3 provides for the reconstruction of the city on its own, using its own resources and exporting its experience and know-how on a metropolitan scale. Synergies are constantly renewed according to the movements of actors.

6. Is it the first time you have been awarded a prize at Europan? How could this help you in your professional career?

Our participation in Europan was initially seen as a means of extending and asserting the research and issues that we have been conducting for a long time: the multidisciplinary approach to territories, waste and resource management, the enhancement of local know-how and sectors, experimentation with building materials (diversion, reuse, bio-sourced), the development of uses and the narrative potential of the sites.
This Europan 15 experience is a decisive step in the consolidation of our team's approach and the "Runner-Up" prize that we are receiving for the first time is an encouragement to continue our research and test it on a large scale.

TEAM IDENTITY

Office: MOONWALKLOCAL collective
Functions: Architect, Environmental Engineer & Management, Urban planner - sustainable urban development & Landscaper – The multidisciplinary nature of a team seems to us to be indispensable in order to respond to current environmental issues, and all the more so in a competition such as Europan, where it is a question of embracing the whole.
Average age of the associates: 33 years old

Has your team, together or separately, already conceived or implemented some projects and/or won any competition? If yes, which ones?

This is the first time this entire team has worked on a joint competition. Nevertheless, MOONWALKLOCAL is currently working with GREENFLEX as an AMO on a project for a street covered with bio-sourced materials and re-use called "Urban Thatch" at the Parc des Portes de Paris (construction site early 2020) and has regularly collaborated with Aurélien RAMOS for several years.
MOONWALKLOCAL has also carried out projects using re-used materials ("Phone hut" with recovered shutters) or bio-sourced materials ("Straw House", in wood structure, straw insulation, earth coatings).