Landscape Focus
Author(s)
Iris Chervet (FR)
Pierre Chastel (FR) - (for the masterplan of public spaces)
Actor(s)
City of Saint-Brieuc
Saint-Brieuc Armor Agglomeration
CAUE
Competition team
Iris Chervet (FR)
architect, landscape architect
Europan 13 Saint-Brieuc
winner
2015
The winning project opens the territory to the diversity of its landscapes, and in particular the three incised valleys that cross the city. The strategy proposed to reveal the scale of the site’s natural geography, in particular by clearing the hillsides to make the landscape of the valleys visible.
The method is based on the identification of multiple projects possible in a long-term vision, including partial deforestation of valleys, which initiates a cycle of re-use of material to develop public spaces. This wood can be used on site to reintegrate valleys in urban routes and to develop public spaces in the city centre.
2016-2020
After the competition, the City of Saint-Brieuc launched a limited consultation between the three winning teams for the development of a masterplan of the public spaces in the city centre that are considered as a priority. The team led by Iris Chervet wins the consultation.
The masterplan is an evolving reference document, a tool for reading public spaces in the city centre. The idea is, at the territorial scale, to put the story of the city centre back in the land-sea axis and to propose an approach of the interfaces with the larger landscape; and at the level of the city centre, to specify the long-term orientations on the public space and the short- and medium-term action program.
The team proposes a “toolbox” on the orientations in terms of planning, an action plan per sector, and communication documents for the general public. The masterplan provides the guideline for future development, and leads the City to the operational phases. The continuity with the winning project mainly lies in the approach and in the method. The idea is to have the territorial concepts of the competition project “get back down” to the scale of the city centre and the public space.
The city launched an operational phase on the priority sector of the cathedral, as a first implementation of the masterplan. A competition is launched mid-July 2018 between the 3 winning teams and is won by Iris Chervet’s team. The project involves an evolution of mobility towards a partial pedestrianization of the city centre, enhances commercial activities, and makes the Place de la Grille more readable as a geographical interface between the harbour and the plateau. The project, representing the urban strategy and the masterplan recommendations, places the historic heart in the land-sea axis by staging the topography going down to the harbour and by using materials evoking the landscapes of the Armorican coastline.
The change of municipality in 2020 resulted in the project being put on hold.
2020-2024
The spring 2020 municipal election was followed by a one-year pause. In the spring of 2021, a public consultation was held to bring out and integrate the uses desired by the inhabitants. This led to an update of the proposal by the project management, in the way of a version with more vegetation. Finally, the project was relaunched in the summer of 2021 by the municipality, with the commissioning of a preliminary design phase (AVP). The planning permission was submitted in spring 2022 and is currently being examined. This was quickly followed by the launch of the call for tenders for the construction work, which should begin in November 2022, for a scheduled period of 15 months.