Plage Urbaine, Grandeur Nature. UNESCO Urban Beach Design Competition

The proposal orchestrates the encounter between the river and the city. Presently rather shy and anemic, in our proposal that encounter is celebrated, amplified and re-orchestrated in a series of new landscaped habitats that regenerate the site and its relationship with water.

A conceptual push on the bank of river brings the fluvial universe on the site. This creates a sheltered bay surrounded by dunes, and generates a generous beach. The push reorchestrates the site in a series of landscape strata. The interface between the city and the river is deployed in a series of experiences, places and habitats, simultaneously distinct and complementary, which reinvents what a beach can be today.

Each stratum has a distinct landscape character – the meadow, the forest, the wetland, the dune, the boardwalk, the dock. Each stratum becomes a habitat for human, animal and vegetal activity to flourish. The building becomes both part of the boardwalk and of layered landscape terms – a macroscopic platform for observing the river landscape, and a link between the urban and river universe.