Lille (FR)

How can the site contribute to the productive city?

The study site includes the Ile des Bois Blancs, part of the Marais quarter in Lomme, the banks of the Upper Deûle and the Boschetti peninsula in a territory that is undergoing major transformation. The Canal de la Haute Deûle links several major urban development projects that will define the metropolitan Lille, including the Parc de la Citadelle in the north and the ecodistrict Les Rives de la Haute Deûle with the EuraTechnologies centre of excellence (+ 3,500 jobs). Among these projects, the presence or even the creation of economic activities on a "human scale" with diverse uses and social ties leading to a more balanced lifestyle becomes a real issue.
In this area with a new residential neighbourhood and tertiary activities, an industrial port, factories and hazardous activities along the canal, fragments of an older urban fabric and a woods that is backdrop to a historic monument, what place is there for activities for citizens associating history, the inhabitants and places (pleasure, cultural, tourism, leisure and small production) and the growing digital "research and development" of EuraTechnologies? How can the huge obsolete 20th-century architectural objects be transformed and reused to serve a "hybrid and creative" city bringing together "architectural heritage and innovation"?

City strategy

Water - a vector of urban development and production tool
The productive city, without denying the quality of inherited spaces (wharves, sheds and buildings), would be paving the way for a territorial reorganization where unique residential and working conditions and productive activities of all kinds (industrial, artisan, tertiary, logistics, trade) would be accommodated in a redesigned open urban space.
The productive city should also be an area for living with a wide range of sport, creative, cultural and festive activities.
This requires an approach aimed at reintroducing and strategically anchoring a productive economy, with innovative enterprises in the secondary sector for example. The city can indeed link expertise, innovation and production in a circular economy with shorter and more sustainable economic cycles, the "renaissance of factories" within the city.
Rich from experiences and policies carried out since 2004 (the Un Nouvel art de Ville project in 2004, the Ville 3000 conference in 2009 and the Lille Respire exhibition for the Bas Carbone competition in 2015), the city and the greater metropolitan area wish to continue along these lines and go further with experimentation and pragmatism.

Site definition 

The Study site, covering the Bois Blancs Island, the banks of the canal and the harbour, from the Boschetti peninsula to the Citadel Park, is an area in transformation where the two project sites together can awaken old activities and encourage new ones related to the waterway. The project sites are located at either end of the study site:

- Site of the Marx Dormoy swimming pool: a popular, much-used place, with several functions and services still in activity. A new olympic swimming pool will, however, be built on the Saint-Sauveur site. The present complex is thus in transition, looking for new uses and maintaining or adapting current ones (multimedia library, theatre, nautical activities).
- Site of the Standart silo and Boschetti peninsula: a unique metropolitan area, on the western edge of the Rives de la Haute Deûle ecodistrict. The project site is the only opening onto the water for the Marais neighbourhood in Lomme. Part of the peninsula and the parcel with the old silo are connected by a dock and front on a 4.5-hectare body of water. These are transition areas that can support projects on landscape (need to create territorial continuity), "ties" between the new ZAC (urban planning project) and older neighbourhoods and programmes related to the question of territorial diversity and identity.

How is Production Considered in the Urban Diversity Program?

Territorial insights, such as those form the 2015 EDF - Bas Carbone competition and the updating of the masterplan for Rives de la Haute Deûle –currently underway–, have shown, on the scale of the Europan competition study site, the presence of a heterogeneous fabric that has to function more by real associations than by juxtapositions.
One of the objectives of this competition is to bring to light a new type of urban and territorial development that reconsiders the sectoral and sometimes segregated organization of territories and reinforces a number of bonds and ties that are the essence of a European city.
The idea of diversity is crucial to sustainable development. The city has much to gain from an economy with local jobs and environmentally friendly production that emphasises recycling and short cycles. At a time of concerns for global warming, water and waterways point out the significance of small-scale, ethical cycles.
The project sites are some of the last available areas in the western sector of the Haute Deûle and the northern tip of the Ile des Bois Blanc where it is still possible to maintain existing activity while creating a new generation, along the canal, a port of registry for atypical boats fulfilling one or more functions at a time. The separation between productive, tertiary and residential activities needs to be rethought, making social and functional diversity a necessary condition of living together, greatly aided by the common theme of water.

Urban projects in Lille

The Project Sites

Marx Dormoy swimming pool project site

The Silo, from the Boschetti peninsula