River (S)trips

PORTRAIT D'ÉQUIPE

VIDEO (par l'équipe)

INTERVIEW
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1. How did you form the team for the competition?
Both architects and urban designers, we met at uapS, an architecture and urban planning firm where we both worked, Marine for 3 years, Lydia for 6 years. After this common experience, we worked separately between Paris and San Francisco, while continuing to exchange on our professional and personal projects, and to share our visions of the profession in relation to the current problems of the city. The year 2019 is a pivotal one for both of us: the beginning of entrepreneurship for Lydia on the one hand (creation of YAP office), and for Marine the status of Director of Urban Design at Dominique Perrault architecture office. Europan was the ideal support to finally concretize the years of exchanges on our complementary visions of the city. For the Europan 16 theme “Living cities”, we chose to team up with Benoite, a landscape designer with whom we have both worked before in Paris.

2. How do you define the main issue of your project, and how did you answer on this session main topic, Living cities?
Today, and all over the world, there is an urban process of reclaiming the waterfront. Industries and ports along rivers are being pushed further away and replaced by new, often generic, post-industrial landscapes. However, these city/port interfaces are strategically located in the cities and can become great sites of experimentation to redefine this city/river relationship. In the case of Bassens, the challenge is an industrial port in full growth but strongly separated from the upper town by the high-speed train on the one hand, and by the topography on the other hand. The project aims to repair the absence of porosity between the two fabrics and the lack of opening and access to the Garonne. Through the theme "Living Cities", we wanted to demonstrate that industry and ecology can coexist by reintroducing biodiversity into the port (productive landscapes), by creating a new dynamism for the existing and new companies, by rethinking mobilities and by transforming the perception of the inhabitants on the industrial heritage and port activities.