The invisibility of the visible
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Project Description
The Invisibility of the visible is an award-winning project at Europan16 for Pont-Aven, France. The theme is the urban regeneration of the former industrial site «la Belle Angèle» through the development of a sustainability path in support of the city and extending to the entire territory. The project combines a strategic and territorial approach to a more sensitive one that reveals the sensory characteristics of the site through the relationship between architecture and natural elements.
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
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Description of the project
Summary
The Invisibility of the visible is an award-winning project at Europan16 for the city of Pont-Aven, France. It responds to the Living Cities theme by using a strategic and territorial approach and a more sensitive one that reveals the sensory characteristics of the site through the relationship between architecture and natural elements. The context is that of the Belle Angèle, a disused industrial area of three hectares located at the entrance of the city of Pont-Aven; nestled between the river Aven and the Bois d'Amour on one side and the road leading to the city centre on the other, symbolizes the arrest of the city in the last thirty years. Pont-Aven, city of mills and painters, is struggling to stay alive and build a contemporary history beyond the fixed image of the city-museum that currently leads. The project idea is to consider the project area as an "agent" that can encourage the triggering of urban processes of circularity that can be extended to the entire territory. These strategies combine sustainability, inclusiveness and aesthetics, helping to give a spirit to the place. The intervention is identified in a single story that develops along the generating axis of the Aven transforming the Belle Angèle from a static sequence to a new chapter of the narrative in which nature and built are the expression of the same language. From the architectural point of view, we establish a dialogue between some of the old industrial buildings and the new low-tech stone buildings. At the programmatic level we reinterpret the local excellence related to food and art by proposing an Innovation Hub focused on Food Design and local products with testing laboratories, catering and production spaces and an Art Work Space, a centre of residence and production of the arts that contributes to the creation of cultural biodiversity. The City Council has already organized workshops to discuss the next stages of development of the project.
Key objectives for sustainability
The project consists of a series of urban and architectural regeneration strategies that, starting from the operational perimeter of the former industrial site «Belle Angèle», develops a sustainability path in support of the city of Pont-Aven that can be extended to the whole territory; the idea is to encourage the initiation of urban processes of circularity, establish synergistic relationships and provoke reciprocal exchanges between the natural and the artificial environment. The restoration of the area with its context takes place through a series of green infrastructures thanks to which we eliminate the urban corridor of the front road, create a dynamic path along the Aven and equip the city with a parking "forest" created with the Miyawaki method. We also foresee the presence of experimental gardens, areas that bring back and give space to biological recreation, social invention and activation of spontaneity, favouring the natural development of biodiversity. The theme of conservation, the restoration of the quality of the ecosystem and biodiversity is combined with that of water through the reconstruction and inclusion of wetlands. In particular, we consolidate and integrate the riparian vegetation and introduce phytodepuration zones throughout the area. All in order to remove pollutants from surface water, prevent flooding, recharge the aquifers and purify wastewater and meteoric in order to reintroduce them into the environment and production cycles. From an architectural point of view, the newly built volumes are a perfect combination of the concept of low-tech and vernacular stone building typical of the region. A philosophy of conservation and functional restoration is also adopted for some existing buildings. One of these, installed since the early stages of the construction site, is aimed at the recovery and reuse of materials. A place that could embody the first cell of a territorial scale system.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
The Belle Angèle is an identity reference for the inhabitants of Pont-Aven because it is the memory of an industrial past that lasted about seventy years. In addition, its close proximity to the Aven and the Bois d'Amour ties it to the history of the washhouses and mills and to that of the painters of the Pont-Aven School. The project, in this perspective, aims to give a spirit to the place, reconnecting the area to the historical heritage and local traditions while maintaining the traces of its industrial past. We have therefore preserved and redeveloped the buildings and elements with a strong identity and at the same time we have identified and introduced within the project those elementary components and posters that have always embodied the spirit of the territory of the Aven determining its character: the water, the stone and the wood. These are not only objective entities, but also present an intangible configuration loaded with symbolic values that can be traced, for example, in the ancient cult of nature proper to the Celtic populations. These elements are therefore the materials of a collective consciousness, shaped by the action of man and his stories. They are the narrative structure of Pont-Aven that can be found in its mills, in the old washhouses and in its traditional architecture. By breaking down the limits that separate it from its context and introducing the natural components within the project, the Belle Angèle transforms itself from a static sequence into a new chapter of the narrative in which nature and construction are the expression of the same language. The result is a succession of spaces with a strong evocative and expressive power in which ancient and new relate harmoniously. The intervention is thus identified in a single story that develops along the generating axis of the Aven according to an alternation of solids and voids, dilations and compressions in which nature and built interpenetrate.
Key objectives for inclusion
The project focuses on the ways of doing that can allow to establish a territorial structure that connects society with the environment. Issues of accessibility to public infrastructure and habitat therefore occupy a preponderant position, favouring conviviality. The process of mending the site of the Belle Angèle with its context requires that the area is connected to the centre and to the main places of interest through a network of sustainable paths and that is accessible from all sides. The urban corridor facing the road is in fact eliminated, through the creation of green infrastructures that allow to cross the area transversely and longitudinally and to have a direct access to the waterfront and to the landscape path connected to it. So, a real recapture of the banks of the Aven, which becomes the theatre of exchanges and recovers its natural cultural and sporting vocation. This will certainly lead to the development of new initiatives by the population aimed at ensuring greater access to water. The theme is particularly dear to the citizens of Pont-Aven who have repeatedly expressed, during the workshops in which we participated, the need to recover the historical and interactive relationship with their river. To rediscover a feeling of belonging, it is essential to involve the inhabitants both in the decision-making process and in the actual realization of portions of the project. In fact, the population will be directly involved in the reforestation process thanks to the establishment of urban laboratories and creative gardening. Associations, artists from different backgrounds and citizens of all ages will become, within an intergenerational exchange, free creators and therefore responsible for understandable and sustainable practices.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
The invisibility of the visible develops the theme of the living city as a paradigm in which new synergies can be created between the environmental, biological, social, economic, cultural and political dimensions. This paradigm leads us to think about space in terms of co-evolution and interactions and to develop a regeneration project combining metabolic and inclusive vitality. Metabolic vitality that go beyond the nature-culture pair, thus allowing the project to identify with a set of transformations that take into account the natural elements, water, material flows and energy that affect the life cycles. These operations generate inhabited environments, complex ecosystems that generate incoming, outgoing and evolving flows. The implementation of such cyclical processes leads to minimising the environmental footprint and the consumption of non-renewable resources, promoting new forms of housing practices. Fundamental in this process is the creation of a territorial structure that connects society with the environment, promoting accessibility and transforming spaces into places of exchange, co-apprenticeship and biodiversity. The city of Pont-Aven is faced with growing inequalities and conflicts caused by invisibility, the image of the city-museum that currently leads, the inaccessibility of housing, work and public services. To fight these social breaks, we propose that inhabited environments become places of application of new inclusive policies and practices. The combination of these practices and the reconnection of the area with the historical and local heritage brings it back to the spirit of the place and gives the citizens of Pont-Aven a sense of belonging lost over the years.
