LE FLEURANSCOPE
Fleurance (FR) - Winner
TEAM PORTRAIT
VIDEO (by the team)
INTERVIEW
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1. How do you define the main issue of your project in relation with the theme “Living Cities Imagining architecture taking care of the milieus”? And in which way do you think your project can contribute to an ecological and/or social evolution?
Fleurance, land of stars, inspired us a new kind of observation tool: the Fleuranscope. Orienting the telescope towards the land allows us to perceive and reveal what is as well as what was, the near as well as the far, the tangible as well as the intangible, the inert as well as the moving. Through its lenses, we consider all the components of the territory on an equal footing, which we will call stars (natural, built and inhabited, social).
Like celestial bodies of varying natures, they are interdependent and their connections form the balance of new ecosystems, the constellations. To generate these connections, our project slips between existing stars to revive those that seem extinct, weaving links between two stars that were previously far apart, and creating new ones only if they are strictly necessary for the overall balance.
2. How did the issues of your design and the questions raised by the site mutation meet?
Architecturally speaking, the public vocation and flexibility of the first two programme elements enable them to be integrated into the vast volumes of the silos tower and the Grande Halle. Following another logic, the housing program is set naturally in the Gamn Vert block, integrated into the fabric of the bastide. It offers a variety of existing structures allowing a large typological diversity. In this way, the project preserves the urban signal and the emblematic character of the silos and halls, precious witnesses to Fleurance's productive character.
PROJECT:
The "Fleuranstere" required more in-depth architectural design work focused on housing adaptability. Our goal is to accommodate a variety of timescales, analized in accordance with the revitalization process of the Bastide.
With a nod to the Familistère de Guise, it is intended to be utopian, collaborative and a generator of social links between the different populations moving in. More generally, our proposal is “to hollow out to reveal” what already exists and multiply the possible uses, echoing the Lacaton & Vassal approach.
SITE:
Our approach is to create spaces that encourage interaction between the various players and natural elements in the area: the Observatory provides the spatial, material and intellectual resources for research into critical issues on a territorial scale, while the Fabrique Céleste enables the collaborative development of citizen initiatives on a smaller scale. These two levels of collaboration generate more or less ambitious and interconnected interventions in the Bastide and its wider area. The scale of the wasteland site in relation to the Bastide has led us to consider the Fleuranscope as a process project. It will be developed in phases that will successively activate its different entities.
REFERENCES:
We've been working together since we met at the architecture school in 2011.
By chance, our star signs turned out to be quite complementary :
Arthur, Leo, futur architecture star, ready for any project
Philippe, Virgo, master of details and finishes
Rose, Taurus, specialist in the study of rural worlds
Javier, Pisces, trained in natural risks prevention
Marine, Sagittarius, obsessed with diagrams and color palettes
6. How could this prize help you in your professional career?
The Fleuranscope aims to provide a forward-looking, poetic response to a subject that brings together a wide range of contemporary issues, but it is also a proposal that is rooted in the local area and meets its ambitions. The choice of the Fleurance site was partly motivated by our perception that the local authority is active and keen to bring this project to fruition. From the competition phase onwards, we have been working in situ, and we hope to continue this approach by becoming involved in the next phases of the project and its associated processes. The Europan competition and its outcomes represent an exciting milestone in our collaboration, with the structuring of our Atelier506 collective.
WORKS:
