Romainville (FR)

How can the site contribute to a productive city?

In the southern part of the city, near the A3 highway and the remnants of an obsolete road infrastructure, the site, an abandoned urban area awaiting the arrival of the tramway (T1), creates a tremendous opportunity for the development of a new «piece of the city» connected to the city centre and combining new forms of urban activity (business premises, urban logistics, etc.) associated with a housing programme promoting the emergence of new uses and public facilities. Favoured by the arrival of new tramway (T1), this territory, which is currently isolated, must be able to develop synergies that link it to other centres in the eastern metropolitan area (Montreuil, Noisy-le-Sec, Fontenay-sous- Bois.) and create greater territorial equity.

City strategy

The city has a voluntary policy that favours co-construction, biodiversity and nature in the city. It is a forerunner in urban agriculture with the Cité Maraîchère project and is active in raising awareness and pedagogy. The city places a priority on its social-housing neighbourhoods, seeking to develop diversity in housing and activities. It has a strong political desire to develop land management tools in partnership with the EPFIF (Public Property Establishment Ile-de-France) to ensure architectural and environmental quality in housing programs but also social and functional diversity by developing private-public partnerships. Romainville wishes to pursue an innovative, experimental approach with the population and is looking for a theme that would bring together areas of production, training, distribution and exchange as well as residential areas.

Site definition

Bordering on the city of Montreuil and therefore at the entry to Romainville, the project site is an area of urban neglect and abandoned heavy road infrastructures that will disappear with the construction of the T1 tramline (start of the work in 2019) linking Bobigny to Val de Fontenay. The abandoned A186 motorway and surrounding plots of land generate about 10 ha of land in Montreuil and Romainville, 2.7 hectares are in Romainville.
If the A3 motorway, a small stretch of which is covered over further north, creates a strong rupture in the landscape and is a source of nuisance (pollution, noise) it also presents a major advantage for the site and elicits urban logistic potentials. It is a neighbourhood of small business buildings and collective housing that needs to prepare for the arrival of the tramway and an end to its isolation. The current fabric has a functional and social diversity that is important to maintain and exploit. The neighbourhood of local artisan workshops, single-family houses and apartment blocks needs to be strengthened, energized, woven together and diversified.

How is production inserted in the urban diversity programme?

Along the T1 tramway, new building programmes should encourage more of the diversity already present on the site (activities, services, training, etc.) and produce housing typologies for a variety of needs and expectations that will come with new inhabitants. The site presents a real opportunity to connect two sectors of the city and develop territorial continuity while also creating an urban planning around the tram stop «Libre pensée». Programme and spatial considerations need to initiate a transformation process that will connect this territory to the rest of the city and Montreuil. How best to bring activities, services, public facilities and housing to this abandoned area and connect it to the rest of the city while still satisfying the need for «nature in the city»? The A3 motorway allows the programming of new activities (urban logistics / circular economy) that serve new local connections.

A186 highway, infrastructure to destroy

Project site below the A186 highway

Gallieni street, support for the future T1Ormes neighbourhood