Terres vives, les nouveaux communaux

Team Point of View

Beyond inhabited urban areas, between the two municipalities, the site appears today as an interstice, as a leftover of the functional planning. In the Middle Ages land without private ownership was considered as a common ground, a land for all the inhabitants. The project proposes to revive the idea of shared space for temporary uses beyond economical reality by creating The New Commons – a ground to all kind of experimentations of production. A gradual management of the land uses without land ownership opens a new way to develop the interstices in the cities and offers a possibility to link the “wasted” ground to its living environment. A central institution “Terres Vives” unites all the actors “concerned” and carries the ecological ambition of the territory.

Jury Point of View

A relevant approach, noted for the position it takes on real estate, time and soil uses that directly address site issues. By constructing the project around common actions and shared uses, this proposal can lead to small-scale, on-site experiments related to a more fine-tuned spatial vision.

2019-2020

A strategic study was entrusted to the three prize-winning teams folowing the Europan competition, with the TUDU team acting as lead contractor.
Each team was assigned a specific theme: TUDU was responsible for landscape and public spaces, ALT focused on the local economic development, and YDEA addressed housing-related issues.
Numerous meetings with stakeholders (institutional representatives, businesses, associations, residents, etc.) helped identify the major territorial challenges and put ongoing developments into perspective.
Beyond this initial phase centered on current projects (Time 0), a first phase (Time 1) aims to restructure the "Spinal Axis" of the business park (an active strip open to a variety of uses) and to introduce functional diversity. East-West connections will be implemented in a second phase, in connection with the development of the Folie site.
The work culminated in the creation of a "plan guide". The overall project retained the idea of strengthening connections between the two cities. The concept of a spatial project taking the form of an urban park blending economy, housing, and nature was preserved.

In 2022, the city of Ris-Orangis launched a call for tenders open to the three Europan winning teams for the redevelopment of the Parc de la Theuillerie, identified in the strategic study as a strategic space for connection and ecological continuity between the Seine and the plateau.
The ALT team won the tender and is now continuing to work on the project independently.