Obras architects

ITINERARY

Marc Bigarnet and Frédéric Bonnet were runners-up in EUROPAN 3, “At home in the city”, in 1994, on the Alicante site (E), which led to the construction of Ereta Park, their first joint project.
They founded their agency OBRAS in Paris in 2003, but have been working for 10 years on modern transformations of sites moulded by history, where nature, as in Alicante, now plays a major role. Between the regionwide geographical scale and the materiality of local space, they design sustainable landscapes, where the boundaries between country and town are interwoven. Each project is a narrative that they seek to share with the local actors. Around these themes, they make micro-projects and regional imperatives coexist. In the wake of the Europan project, they have connected these scales and different themes in their recent projects: 200 hectares near Montpellier, Dockland Park in Le Havre, transport hub in Versailles, road in Fontainebleau.
Frédéric Bonnet teaches at the Clermont-Ferrand School of Architecture, Marc Bigarnet at the Paris Val de Seine School of Architecture.

BETWEEN SUBSTANCE AND TERRITORY

The interweaving of scales leads us to connect territorial strategies and constructional character, the materiality of places. Geometric traces, the memory of materials, horizons and geographical systems, become the medium of radical transformations.

Le Havre (F) - Harbour park

Running from the Town to the port, Rue Bellot is a mineral surfaced promenade that leads to the river garden. Lines of cast iron edgings, stretched between concrete and asphalt platforms, form a gently rising tier, fanning out to the south, providing panoramic views over the port's graving docks. Strips of knitted stainless steel lit up at night like a continuous drape, reshape the boundary of the port and filter sun and views between the residential and industrial landscapes.

NATURE, HERITAGE AND TRANSFORMATIONS

Nature and heritage, common values, are allies, potentials, and not constraints. Regulations often neglect the importance of the transformations that historic structures have produced and the ambiguities of our relationship with nature, between fear and desire. This relationship with history and geography establishes links between timeframes: yes, the 17th-century is our contemporary.

Versailles (F) - History and development

The challenge here is to reconcile the monumental scale of the historic town, the presence of nature invited into it (clay reservoirs), and the modern uses and flows (Chantiers ZAC) created by a new, highly active centre. It must be possible to connect the geography, the crowds, the show, with the site's constructional memory, the domestic use of the gardens for local people, and finally the experiment in landscape involved in building around a wasteland.

INTERWOVEN BOUNDARIES

The dualities between structure and envelope in architecture are also implicated in the sectorisation of urban land. Boundary effects are more blurred, they operate in depth. The environment proves to be a continuous medium and not a succession of mutually hostile modes.

Bretigny-Sur-Orge, (F) - Living along the fields

The layout of the ground produces a weave of narrow strips, of variable length, interspersing dwellings, domestic gardens and orchards, open meadows or alleys. Public land is reduced to a minimum and the assumption is that each private garden will contribute to the coherence of the overall landscape. In the heart of the district, people live by open fields. Boundaries merge, ecological continuities are the priority.

SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES

A balance between effort and result is to be found both in the transformations of territory and in its architectures. This requires an effective interpretation of the connections between long-standing existing structures and new elements. "Sustainability" implies this sense of measure and of continuity, although it does not prejudge the extent of transformations wrought on the land.

Cornebarrieu (F) - Object in the landscape

Exemplifying the constructional concept underlying the site's farm buildings, the place - space for the communication - is intended for conversion into a building for voluntary groups. The simplicity of its structure and its bioclimatic qualities provide the conditions for its conversion.
An economy of resources is clear by using a simple shelter and avoids the potential escalation of technical mechanisms often used to rectify the effects of climate.

Europan Generation, The reinterpreted city Catalogue
Editions: Cité de l’architecture and Europan, May 2007
224 colour pages, bilingual English/French


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