The Huangshanlu Forest Park, on the Nansha peninsula, constitutes a double challenge. It is the culmination of the great green corridor that stretches between the China Sea and the heart of the metropolis of Guangzou, and the starting point of a tourist reconversion of the urban district of Nansha. - Watch the video -
Creating an international equipment for the use of the metropolis and installing a structuring pole for South Guangzhou is a big challenge.
It is a big challenge to create an international equipment for the use of the metropolis and to install a structuring pole for South Guangzhou.
It is both a cultural and environmental challenge, that holds in the affirmation of a global culture combining scientific culture (environmental protection) and sensitive culture. This global culture is a living culture that meets our environmental concerns and artistic expression throughout the land-art, responding to social concerns of relaxation, walk, discovery and well-being.
It takes into account the extraordinary development and opening up of tourism and cultural practices : the advent of leisure activities, the growing availability of knowledge and means of expression and the diversity of lifestyles.
SIGNES was invited by the developer to design a project for Diamond Island redevelopment in Phnom Penh. - Wath the video -
Project includes a 316000 m2 of a mixed-use neighborhood with a wide range of residencial type buildings with, commercial retails, Golden tower hotel, offices, community park and open spaces including a generous waterfront promenade.
Inspite high density requested by the client SIGNES managed to provide luxurious gardens, places and bicycle-friendly environments that gives to this new district stronger neighborhood character
Adittionally new transportation and utility infrastructure would serve the project including new ferry terminal.
Sleeping in the forest! First anniversary for this fairytale accommodation. If you want to book a chalet please go to the hotel website: http://www.etape-en-foret.com/etape-en-foret-normandie
In the country of Calvados and middle of forest paths funded by 11 local community SIGNES designed this family vacation site that includes accommodation, activities on site, restaurant and conference hall.
4 types of accommodation designed by SIGNES give unique experience of this forest:
Chalet, Cottage, Stilts Chalet and Tree House.
All the chalets are equipped with the Outdoor Terrace / kitchenette with induction cooker, kettle, coffee maker, mini fridge / lounge area with a chair bed / double / twin bedroom a bunk / bathroom with shower and separate toilet.
The XXL size windows offers a panoramic view of the hilly site of the Forest of Saint Sever and offers an unusual and relaxing time with the discovery of the awakening of the Forest.
The site provide as well 15 plots in the Camping Area.
Acrobatic trail is a real Air Hike leveraging assets that offers Forest open view.
Pedagogical courses and discovery
On a path to a wooden footbridge various themes are explored like water cycle on the site and its filtration ponds, existing flora and fauna in the surrounding forest. The discovery of nature and the forest is carried out from the terrace of each chalet.
Delivery of long‐term wetland wise use, sustainable flood management and contribute to the well‐being of urban citizens.
The Colombo Metropolitan Region (CMR) is endowed with a system of marshes that play an important storage function for rainwater particularly during heavy monsoon seasons.
With the development of the city of Colombo and its suburbs, the areas around and within the wetland areas have been increasingly encroached and/or are in the process of being developed significantly.
While capable to function as flood storage areas, wetlands also provide additional ecosystem services that range from water quality improvements to cooling the city.
Benefits such as these are often unseen, and their value becomes apparent only when they are lost, and the unforeseen costs of replacing these free-of-charge services become evident. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate different values of wetlands to be preserve, while accompanying urban development, not only in risk management but also in terms of quality of life, pollution control, conservation of a biodiversity and eco-tourism development.
Probably the biggest future hospital in France (1800 beds), CHU reflects a new concept for hospital design with high quality designed public areas: accessible, connected and luxuriously landscaped.
Signes is a part of competition winning team: Art and Build, Artelia, Pargade architect which convinced jury with the concept of permeability of hospital and important open space network, linking thus the city and the hospital hospital.
Public spaces are structured around 3 levels of landscape design:
• Pockets Parks_ atrium gardens and smaller open space in the hospital
• La Grande Allée Jardin au Sud-South green corridor
• Les Traverséesvers la Loire_ street level gardens that links hospital campus with the river waterfront.
“Pocket Parks” provides verdant scenery expressed by heeling gardens full of colours and attractive perfumes. These inner courtyards serve as landmarks for the complex network of laboratories, classrooms, and work spaces. A lush green roofs (26 000m²) are part of sustainable design goals to reduce run-off water discharge and energy bill for hospital by providing natural isolation layer.
Hospital is highly connected with the city by arriving of tramway and green bike docs. Vicinity of riverfront will attract recreational activities within hospital but also citizens of Nantes.
Signes job in this context is to re-invent public space which we will link and blend different uses but users too
In the heart of a Bordeaux sector partially urbanized in the 70s, the eco-district Ginko constitutes the first element of the urban reassessment of the north of Bordeaux. Stretching in the South on a surface of 5ha, along an axis connecting the lake with wet docks, the park allows on the scale of the urban area, to establish a dialogue between these two sectors with a strong identity. As part of a global approach of sustainable development, the aimed objectives are multiple: to forge links from the surrounding districts up to the city center, to value the environmental potential of the site, while taking in account the specific character of the landscape.
On the scale of the eco-district, the promenade-garden offers a place of breath in which the aquatic element takes its place naturally to constitute the basis of the landscaping. Developing on both sides of a channel in connection with the lake, the park declines varied spaces that can be adopted by all: wooded spaces, ecological niches, open-air theater, big meadow, filtering gardens, groves, educational workshops, urban corridors and playgrounds. Offering as many points of view on the natural space as methods for approaching the vegetal world, the composition of the promenade-garden allows the walker to reach the understanding of its ecological specificity, having access to a playful universe where he is able to escape and relax.
The Municipality of Montivilliers decided on the realization of an eco-district of 1000 housing on 58 ha in the sector included between the District of la Belle Etoile and the Hameaux de Réauté and of Fréville, the municipality will act as the contracting owner.
The eco-district is situated on farmlands, gently sloping southward, between existent urbanizations.
The project is a pretext for the invention of a new form to live, in the heart of a natural and agricultural system: a ploughed nature.
The eco-district will reside within natural and agricultural spaces, used as gardens by their inhabitants but managed as farmlands.
Situated in Saint Gilles les Bains, on the west coast of La Réunion, the Ermitage les Bains sector constitutes one of the centers of this seaside city coast.
However, its tourist development has been hindered by the devaluation and disorganization of its urban fabric, its lack of attraction and the absence of development of its natural resources (beach, lagoon). The challenge in this study is to facilitate a valuable tourist development, based on the reassessment of its central sector, around key elements of the traditional seaside resorts: Kursaal, dense and regular built grid, organized through a living structuring axis and the opening of the city onto the coast in particular through the facilities of the beach.
The Family Green Heart is a breath of air of 35 ha at the heart of Saint-Denis, corresponding in part to the original imprint of the Gully Patates in Durand. - watch the video -
The project of an equipped park of which it is today the subject, focuses on the improvement of its assets to transform into a unifying park with the sports and the leisure activities as a vocation:
- The opening onto the coast,
- The restoration of its vegetal, hydraulic, historic and geographical heritage,
- The confirmation of its unifying character;
- The integration of specific sports equipments and leisure activities connected through a coherent development, extrapolating the passive aspects of the site.
The affirmation of the New Coastal Road as a true "maritime" project depends on the respect of the natural elements that shaped the cliff over the centuries. The passages in dike and in coastal elevation constitute an opportunity for a new thinking on the environment of the oceanic bank.
The New Coastal Road may gain a high symbolic significance if its functional role is completed by environmental and social answers.
The environmental response include, on one hand the geometrical and functional choices which would allow for the respect of the marine ecosystems, and on the other hand the developments of the oceanic bank which they must allow for a true porosity and biological exchanges between the terrestrial and the marine environments.
The social responses should constitute the opportunity for the population to reclaim possession of the coast; these are situated at the connecting points of the project with the existing urban fabrics, the interchange of Saint-Denis, the interchange of the Grande Chaloupe and the interchange of La Possession. Their proposed developments aim to transform them into essential transitional spaces towards the ocean bank and its discovery.
The district of the Pont de Sèvres is a labor ex-fortress given up by Renault to diverse planners and transformed into a district on a suspended slab. In spite of the district’s numerous assets, the Pont de Sèvres did not escape the degradation and the neglect experienced by the 70s constructions on suspended slabs. The neglect and the rejection of these "new" districts raise the question of the role of the released spaces on suspended slabs, and point the necessity of connecting these districts to the urban system in a simple way, in particular within the global project of the Urban Development Zone Séguin Rives de Seine.
The public spaces of the Pont de Sèvres district are framed by a heavy constructed space which conditioned their typologies. Fragmented by their varied altimetry, the social and land context, awaits the arrival of a unifying project that will respect their respective vocations and their uses.
Dating from 1857, the Longchamp racecourse is the most important of Paris.
France Gallop decided to modernize the entire racecourse, launching thereby the project of "New Longchamp", which included the demolition and the reconstruction of the grandstands of the Jockey Club, the Presidential grandstands and of the sector of " weighing scales ", the extension of the stables, the renovation of the Pavillion’s grandstands, of the administration building and of the totalizer building, the demolition of the grandstands of the City Council and of all the related buildings, the reconstruction of new buildings (restaurant, special events and educational activities, the preparation for the implantation of a new track " all weathers ", and the landscaped treatment associated with the whole project.
The implantation of the new structures for the racecourse and its organization in a layout plan meant a perfect adequacy between the equipment and its environment, the wood of Boulogne and the proximity of the Seine, and also the preservation of the existing trees, the whole while ensuring a functional logic.
The eco-district of the Old Abattoirs, is part of a territorial coherence vaster than the environmentally responsible development of an urban sector. It is at the same time the connection and the oportunity for an urban extension, one that should be contained; given its position it has no immediate natural ramparts unlike the West with its coastal wooded reliefs.
The challenge in this project is mainly double - even if the number of the low scale challenges it’s also important.
It is about creating a missing centrality in this typical suburb sector and creating a true agro-urban border.
It is advisable to reconcile seemingly opposite conditions, but also extremely complementary:
- The meeting of the large and the local scales;
- The crossing of the natural flows (ecological corridors and hydraulics) and artificial flows (transport) under the conditions of an urban civility: square, gardens, housing, and centrality.
To be coherent the different scales must feed each other.
The Oceanarium has for ambition to become the new symbol of the city of Kochi, offering, at the heart of the region of Kerala, key equipment dedicated to the education and to the discovery of the regional sea of Oman, the tropical archipelago of Laquedives and the Indian Ocean as an ensemble. Threatened by the pollution and the decrease of the marine resources, the oceans have become a global stake and India has an important contribution to make by protecting its ecology and its resources to guarantee a sustainable social development of its coastal populations.
The project presents diverse natural environments, the tropical vegetation, the coastal plain, and the tropical cliffs - allowing, through aquariums and a marine park, to witness the extraordinary diversity of the submarine kingdom with its colors, its forms and the exuberance of the gardens of coral.
The World Fair of 2012 chose Yeosu to illustrate the theme of the protection of the Oceans. It’s located in an old industrial port at the back of a big bay. Besides the construction of the pavilions, a competition was launched for the reassessment of the sea front.
The project is conceived as a vast marine park which uses as a structure a promenade on the water through artificial cliffs conceived to recreate a marine biodiversity around the bay. At the heart of this project of Big "O", near the island of Odongdo, on the major axis of the Exhibition which descends from the mountain, it will be built the marine symbol: the vessel Planet Ocean. It’s an aquatic monument conceived as a lighthouse which guides mankind so that they do not get lost in a future without an environmental reference.
The Urban Development Zone Notre-Dame is located in the South of the historic center of de La Queue en Brie, bounded by the RN4, the Departmental Park of the Marmousets and the Forest of Notre-Dame.
The Urban Development Zone is part of a historic territory characterized since long ago by the presence of great environmental resources. The forest of Notre-Dame, which is part of the green belt of the Parisian crown as well as of the Arc Boisé, is without a doubt, the most important element of the site. The great historical and urban axes as well as long rectilinear forest courses mark and structure the contemporary territory until today, in spite of the fragmentary and mixed character of the more recent urban fabrics.
The area of the Urban Development Zone, is constituted for the most part of fallow lands, with a rhythm that is given by a series of transverse courses towards the forest, it is also strongly characterized by the presence of hedgerows.
The site of the future Urban Development Zone Renaissance III was originally intended for the construction of the House of Civilizations. Above Saint Paul's historic site, it symbolizes in a way the history of the peopling of La Réunion.
In spite of a rather strategic localization, it is today easily accessible from the road of the Tamarins, of which it constitutes in a certain way an entrance and an exit, this site does not have a strong image that may link it to a particular vocation: residential, cultural or of activities.
The landscape and environmental guidelines grant it a double vocation, residential and of economic activities, a vocation seen everywhere today, because the island is confronted with two challenges: respond to a greater demand for social housing and provide a favorable space that even " invites " the economic activities that can be develop on the island.
The development program leans on the geography of the site and in all of its components.
Its readability allows the organization of the future district in 6 sectors and also determines the urban functions, the density and the typologies.
This project combines strong density and a maximal quality of life. The zones to be urbanized are strongly densified in order to spare the patrimonial landscaped elements (gullies and rocky outcrops), essential elements of the site’s identity.
A strong centrality is created on the plateau adjoining an existing district, to guarantee the urban graft of this new district.
The Retirement Departmental Home of the Yonne developed over the years, from the site of the old hospice. It colonized, by successive constructions, both hillsides of this valley while developing the existing buildings to keep them adapted to the current needs. It is part of a tradition inherited from the Auxerre of the middle-ages which counted more hospitals than any other city.
The project arises from a necessity of developing the facilities and the desire to better meet the needs of evolution. Thus, this new construction is part of a global project: to host residents coming from both sites: le Panier Vert and Champlys so as to bring the buildings into line with current standards.
But beyond a simple multiphase operation, it is about creating a place of life particularly adapted for elderly persons. This translates into high functionality for the delivery of care, and into pleasant and bright living spaces, open to the outside, all factors that can contribute to promote the desire to live.
In order to establish a green corridor, the Signes agency assists the SYAGE in the banks development of the Yerres, the Réveillon and of the Seine. To this end, they will be carried projects for the development of the banks and for the creation and rehabilitation of the footbridges with the aim of an ecological land restoration.
Placed between three hydraulic dynamics - the Atlantic Ocean, the Garonne, and the Ars stream watershed - we propose, within the framework of the OIN, to articulate the territory of Saint Jean Belcier around and with this element.
On the quays, the dynamics of the tides will be celebrated thanks to the creation of an interstitial territory constituted of island mosaics that change according to the height of the river.
In the site of Armagnac, the urban structure will be regulated by the Ars stream, the orientation of the routes and their slopes will be determined by the implementation of a network of landscaped or urban ditches that will naturally feed it.
At the right of Gattebourse, its renovation into an open space will allow to organize the public space around the hydraulic dynamic and to connect through its presence, the territories of the South with those of the North.
On the scale of the territory of Belcier, at the end of the old delta of the Eau Bourde, a vast linear park will be developed on the imprint of the stream. The work on the memory of the place will be the basis of a new rich and surprising promenade linking the banks of the Garonne to the heart of the new districts.
The project is part of the tertiary park in the Urban Development Zone of Louvresses in the border of the A.86 highway, it’s been conceived as a landscaped campus of 30 ha. The Crystal project is a set of offices forming a built block of 20,650 m ², creating an intern space intended both for the THALES Communication company social life and for temporary exhibitions.
The landscaped project consists of a vast aquatic garden taking up the main part of the heart of the island. The garden is organized through staggered ponds, combining the environmental and technical functions, by receiving and treating the stormwater collected on the site through phytorémédiation. Also participating in this water treatment, are the waterfalls which intercalated with gardens islands they present the different levels of the ponds. The Islands reconstitute various biotopes thanks to the variation in their level in relation to the water and are accessible through footbridges as places of promenade.
The vegetal part of these islands in combination with the ponds allow for numerous mirror effects which, harmonized with the reflection of the facades, create multiple scales in the internal space.
The Chinese and French cultures have in common the place they confer to the human body as central element at the heart of the notion of landscape. If both cultures gave rise to different landscapes and gardens in their composition and structuring, the relationships they both have established with the real-life space and the body have numerous analogies. The anthropological character of the landscapes perception appears in both cultures.
The valley of Longchi will not be developed out as a territory apart, but as one of the elements of the tourist reorganization of Dujiangyan on the mountain of Qingcheng and its national forest park that shelters the Panda.
In a context of economic transformations and the liberalization of the European market, the countries of the Balkans in order to profit of investment opportunities attempt to enhance their assets through the creation of the optimal conditions (services offerings, equipments, transport and living environment).
Dürres, as the main maritime getaway of Albania is rapidly changing; the relocation of its industrial port offers new opportunities of urban territories. Thanks to an exceptional archaeological heritage, the city redefines itself on the tourist economy, in particular towards the hotel sector and that of the pleasure navigation. The recovered industrial areas as well as a the redefinition of the coastline on the waterfront allow the creation of a new urbanizable space that combines a new residential and hotel street fronting along with new public facilities and high quality public places.
At the heart of the city of Yeosu, the perimeter of the Caltex project covers a vast zone of still wild vegetation situated in the border of the coast between the current city center and the urban development area of Ungchon. The Caltex Company, to whom it belongs this ground, wished to launch a big competition for the development of the zone including a concert hall, an observatory, an information center and a museum.
This program is an opportunity to develop a general concept of a recreational and cultural landscaped garden right in the heart of the urban center, conceived as a vast place of breath, relaxation and a cultural walk which protects and emphasizes the natural characteristics of the site between the hill and the sea.
The project suggests reorganizing the pedestrian spaces in a sustainable manner, to refocus the park within a coherence of circulation and legibility.
For 20 years, the development of the attractions was confined to the North part of the park, transforming the South zone into an empty space, with a clear landscaped vocation. In order to reestablish the balance, in this space with a very high potential of development, we suggest the creation of new attractions based on the theme of the ecology, allowing first for the integration of this zone into the attractive part of the park and also to introduce a futuristic vision of the ecology of the planets.
In this manner, the development of the Futuroscope Park preserves its primary vocation as an observatory of the future, proposing as well within a strong landscaped context, new atmospheres that ally the vegetal and the technology in a harmonious way.
The CIVIS wishes to implement the planning of the economic development area of Pierrefonds, on the municipality of Saint-Pierre, action declared of community interest.
The zone of Pierrefonds is situated in the West entrance of the municipality and covers a 106 hectare perimeter declared in AUSTma in the Local Plan of Urbanism for 15 years.
The CIVIS development project for this territory, aims to create the structuring economic Pole of Pierrefonds in conjunction with the various zones of activity in proximity that are part of in the urban poles of the different population centers.
The main objective of the development of this large-scale Urban Development Zone for the Big South, will be to follow the recommendations of the Grenelle Bill on the Environment regarding sustainable development: accessibility, management of rainwater through ditches, an acceptable carbon assessment both at the level of its creation and of its management, an increased place for the renewable energies, generous and dominant landscaped spaces of simple and economic management, the biodiversity, integration of the new development in its original landscape in particular regarding the vegetal grid and the rhythm of swaths stemming from the former use of grounds for sugar cane.
The choice of the implantation site was oriented towards a vast agricultural territory, that straddles the border of the municipalities of Flins-sur-Seine and Mureaux, delimited in the North by the Seine and the inhabited hillsides of Mézy, in the South by the railroad line Paris - Mantises running parallel with the A13 highway and St Vincent's Wood, on the West by the warehouse parking lots of the Renault’s factory and its own railway siding, in the East by the industrial park of " Nouvelle France " and the agricultural parcels of the Hedge’s farm.
The layout of the track and the compact typology of the circuit and its equipments generate an architectural configuration of a stadium shape ensuring an optimal acoustic and visual protection of the surrounding spaces and of the local residents.
At a landscape level the compactness of the project exercises a great influence over a vast agricultural territory on approximately 1/3 of the parcel assigned to this project, allowing the implementation of the initial departmental project dedicated to organic farming by superimposing water catchment areas. This agricultural ground leans against the verge of the circuit of Formula 1 through the Garden of the Mechanics of Water ensuring the site’s treatment and management of the water drainage towards the Seine.
Situated in a sector of Casablanca with an active urban development, the district of Sindibad constitutes an exceptional site combining the urban space to the natural spaces. The presence of abandoned quarries and that of the old park in contact with the oceanic ledge creates a federative place deeply ingrained in the memory of the inhabitants of Casablanca. In order to create a district for the future and to provide a new vitality at the same time, the developed project consists of the creation of a true urban pole integrating in a sustainable development approach all the components of the life of the city: housing, tourism, activities, leisure activities and social development.
Within this exceptional landscape, the commitment to create a "green and blue" district, where the vegetal and the water naturally present will be intertwined, is inevitably guided by taking into account and preserving the natural and historic elements. In this context, the " Park of the New Worlds of Sindibad ", which develops the activities of leisure, conceives through a succession of theme parks a landscaped continuity consolidated in the macrogeographical scale. Retracing the path of the water stemming from five original springs, the landscape of the parks offers a long and animated pedestrian walk, and guarantees the sustainability of the vegetal and ecological dimension of the site.
The tramway-train infrastructure requires both for a functional and a geographical identity. In the choices that will lead to a definitive layout, the landscape must be taken into account in its dynamics, that is, into the future. In terms of development the objectives now aim towards the qualitative aspect, whether it is about the coastal urban centers or the public spaces to which are connected. It seems necessary to link up the plan to these objectives, in other words towards a reassessment of the coastal urban centers and the waterfrontss. The geographical identity of the Tramway-train should thus be the one of a coastal railroad network: "the tramway-train of the Coast"
"The one who, without betraying modern materials or modern programs, would have produced a work which would always seem to have existed, that in brief would be banal; I say that that one could feel satisfied." (Auguste Perret)
In the city of Havre, the doctrine of the structural classicism is applied on the scale of a city, determining its general morphology, from the span of the façade up to the entire unit, through the buildings, the lots, and the public spaces, from a modular grid of 624 cm corresponding to the spacing between the load bearing points and resulting from a quest for optimization within the framework of a policy of industrialization of the building.
The new project does not assert itself by an ennoblement of the surface but by an "anonymous" reassessment of the space, the grid embedded in a simple way within the classic covers of the urbanization and prepares the existing for the functional modifications of the public place.
New Caledonia is recognized world-wide for its exceptional biodiversity, which constitutes one of the most important reserves of endemism, as well for its flora and fauna as for its coral reefs.
The forest park of the city of Nouméa is a representation of the diversity of the New Caledonian vegetal and animal landscape.
The climatic and morphological characteristics of this park allow it to house a typical fauna and a flora. It constitutes a vegetal and animal reserve enabling the preservation and the promotion of the endemic species and ensures, for the future, the sustainability of this biodiversity through a coherent development of the territory and the control of the renewable resources.
The nickel factory of Doniambo, which constitutes a particular territory in the entrance of Nouméa, must be dismantled in 2050. The reassessment of this territory and its future are the object of this competition.
In the design of this project, the team attempted to enhance the living history of this site, human and technical of the SLN, from its heritage to its completion.
The integration of the actions related to the development of the site, go well beyond the territorial scale of this landscape, and will be gradually implemented over the next 30 years. This challenge requires a true strategy both on the reconversion subject of the industrial site and that of the modus operandi. Doniambo is also an urban complex to be reconciled with the urban area of Nouméa, by redefining its visual limits and the accesses to the city as well as its relationship to the water that surrounds the site on the major part of its perimeter.
The sector Pierre Vives is situated in the northwest of the municipality of Montpelier, on the hillside, in the east part of the Mosson catchment, in the immediate vicinity of the district of social housing of the Mosson ( 25,000 inhabitants).
The "Pierre Vives" building (Departmental archives, departmental direction for books and reading, and the Hérault Sports), the ambitious architectural project signed by Zaha Hadid serve as catalyst for the creation and the structuring of this new district.
The site of study benefits in particular from a rather interesting natural landscaped environment: in the South the stream of Rieutord which extends towards the Mosson and in the northeast the future Park Malbosc. In order to connect these two elements through green continuities beyond the limits of the project, a true green frame of great quality is created in direct relation with the new developments, but also with the existing urbanization.
Within the continuity of the projects already under way by the city of Nouméa, the reassessment of the waterfront of the Petite Rade is at the core of the concerns for the development of Nouméa Grand Centre. The question today consists of taking advantage of the transformation undertaken by Nouméa Grand Centre to create a unifying place between the various entities of the city, to restore a social activating vocation and an area for promenades in this major space.
The project developed by Signes has for ambition to redirect the city towards the sea, by fitting the present and the future into a vast landscaped continuity, among which the projects of facilities, the residential and public places will create new urban densities and will revitalize the city center. The public places will be reassessed through a new garden and plantations forming a dense vegetal grid, offering to the inhabitants a new urban comfort that favors the soft modes of transport, in particular through the implantation of a segregated-lane public transport project (TCSP).
The project is part of the tertiary park in the Urban Development Zone of Louvresses in the border of the A.86 highway, it’s been conceived as a landscaped campus of 30 ha. The Crystal project is a set of offices forming a built block of 20,650 m ², creating an intern space intended both for the THALES Communication company social life and for temporary exhibitions.
The landscaped project consists of a vast aquatic garden taking up the main part of the heart of the island. The garden is organized through staggered ponds, combining the environmental and technical functions, by receiving and treating the stormwater collected on the site through phytorémédiation. Also participating in this water treatment, are the waterfalls which intercalated with gardens islands they present the different levels of the ponds. The Islands reconstitute various biotopes thanks to the variation in their level in relation to the water and are accessible through footbridges as places of promenade.
The vegetal part of these islands in combination with the ponds allow for numerous mirror effects which, harmonized with the reflection of the facades, create multiple scales in the internal space.
In the second half of the XIX century, the ideas of the hygienist movement can be visible through the design of numerous Urban Parks created as part of the town planning operations. It was a question of associating the beauty and the health, of allying the practice and the aesthetics; and the Art of gardens, placed at the level of the Fine arts, became the complement of architecture.
The restoration of the Park of Champagne must be included in history as a «the moment of recognition «of the future Park of Champagne. This improvement of the Park of Champagne consists of a reinterpretation of the «picturesque sentiment" which emerges from the Park, it calls for a renovation according to contemporary aspirations:
The environmental well-being and the idea of garden associated to the floral paradigm, cultural and artistic events, leisure activities and multi-sports for a wide population, an accessibility for all.
The city of Clichy la Garenne appoints the SEMERCLI to launch a study on a sector in transformation, situated in the Northeast of the city.
Surrounded by Levallois in the Southwest and by Saint-Ouen in the Northeast, Clichy is a city of transition within the Hauts de Seine in social and urban terms, etc.
An old industrial site, the Northeast sector is a symbol of the evolutions of this part of the territory. Surrounded by the docks of Saint-Ouen, it includes all the important challenges for the evolution of the territory of clichy:
- Opening up of the district to the Seine
- A district that appropriates the river
- A district that turns its industrial past into heritage
The question of the new urbanism of the entrance of Nouméa consists on the reassessment of its North entrance, both on the urban plan and on that of the public spaces.
It is a question of reconciling the North of the city with its center while facilitating new pedestrian, commercial and cultural practices there. It is also a question of preparing the site for the future transformations of the territory of Nouméa.
The main objective of the project for this Urban Development Zone will be its high environmental quality: management of rainwater by ditches, to increase the role of renewable energies, generous and dominant landscaped spaces of simple and thrifty management, the integration of the new development into its environment in particular in the existing natural grid which will shape the future Urban Development Zone.
It includes several major challenges:
- Strengthening of the attractiveness of the center village
- Creation of new urban connections between the existing urbanization and the one to come
- Integration of the existing public equipments
- Maintain the diversity of the housing environments as a driver of the urban dynamics (650 housings).
- Development of an environmental approach.
The study reflects the Réunion’s current and precise context: demographic growth, questioning on the economic identity of La Réunion and the Big South, on the place of La Réunion (tourist or other) at an international level, environmental awareness... All these questions which have an incidence on the landscapes need to be analyzed to enhance the real identity of the South.
The numerous assets of the Big (South) give him a status of exemplary nature within the micro-regions of La Réunion and make of it one of the tourist reasons of the island.
The development of the Big South will depend on the improvement of its natural spaces and on the integration of its urbanization at the heart of these spaces.
The two seas highway is situated in a position offering a panoramic view over the crossed territory, participating actively in the discovery of the landscapes that succeed one another.
The objective of the first phase is to clearly identify the crossed landscapes, to obtain the main characteristics of the relief, the vegetation, the hydrology and the urbanization, and then to determine the particular and dominant visible points, that mark out the motorway plan in a close and distant way.
It is then a question of understanding and of characterizing the relationship maintained between the highway and the landscape, its current insertion at the level of the earthworks and of the plantations, this in order to establish an aesthetic and technical reference providing the development orientations for the future extension, extension that will allow to rethink the presentation of these landscapes through the treatment of the vicinities of the A61.
Adjoining the Pompadour intersection and marked by the presence of major urban elements such as a TGV(HST) line, an important suburban housing district or a water-treatment plant, the Urban Development Zone Val Pompadour extends over a no-man's-land in expectation of future days.
Signes proposal consists on connecting and revealing the layout plan through a forest which will characterize the public space and will frame the future lots for which we established a set of landscape and environmental guidelines.
The landscape intervention of the site of the Bel Air responds to both the goals of inclusion of the future business park and also enhances the present heritage near the site: the Castle and the park of Ferrières, the forests and the afforestations, the path of Genitoy.
The Urban Development Zone of the Bel Air seeks to be a pioneer in the environmental management of its public spaces, in particular regarding the rainwater treatment.
Two ponds with plants, of 400 m of length each, open to the public, collect the rainwater of the totality of the developments.
Filtered by purifying aquatic plants, these waters are then rejected into a natural stream, the river of Tafarette, which crosses the forest of Ferrières.
The ground approach to the airport is a visual adventure. It evokes an initiatory route: an authentic esplanade-garden, the parking lot of the airport disappears within the vegetal landscapes of the Big Island. In association with the gardens on the runways side and to the internal patios, along with the constructed parts, the airport constitutes an ensemble in which architecture and landscape commune closely presenting the new identity of the terminal. A big peripheral way serves the various parking lots and access the terminal directly.
The parking lots on both sides are linked to a central connection of which axis is materialized by a double alignment of royal palms.
The influence of the RER(REGIONAL EXPRESS NETWORK) integrates the urban fabric of Saint-Mandé as a virtual avenue, an axis of composition around of which the city got organized. This character of avenue, which suggests at the same time asnd since the 19th century, the traffic lane and the promenade, becomes real today through the roof of the railroad, encouraging the transformation. It is not about a simple development on a suspended slab but about a treatment from facade to facade, that is a new public space in the city.
Alexandra David-Neel, the famous explorer native of St Mandé, as well as the closeness of the IGN (NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC INSTITUTE) directed us towards the themes of travel and exploration, which strongly mark the culture of the City of Saint-Mandé.
The force of the relief and the natural environment influenced the design of the area of extension of the city as well as the organization of the big typologies of the urban fabrics, in particular regarding the individual housing situated most of the time on the slopes, the group housing and the business parks in the lower parts.
In the framework of an economic development policy connected to the presence of the Peak of the Furnace in La Réunion, the Park of the volcano will extend over a 23 hectare municipal land situated in the vicinity of the municipality. This project combines an entertainment park, picnic areas and hotel equipments.
The landscapes designed by Signes associate in the same concept sustainable development, natural environment and endemic gardens. The big buckle, which assures the service of the whole site, will imprint on the landscape the symbolic shape of the Volcano’s enclosure. In a playful and pedagogic environment, the park presents attractions on the theme of the human adventure and the volcanoes, with lively activities where attractions, sounds, light and water are mix together.
The Road of Tamarinds between St Gilles and the Etang Salé on the west coast of the Reunion Island, crosses a complex geography cut by numerous ravines. The layout of the route was carried out on landscaped criteria, on one hand to minimize the impact of the earthworks, on the other hand to emphasize the views from the road. To the utilitarian function of connection of this axis is associated a role of discovery of the landscapes of the west coast by the creation of lookout areas at the interchanges level. Signes participates in the studies of engineering for the insertion of the routes, of the earthworks, of the plantations, and the summary plans.
At the heart of the city of Terrasson, in the Dordogne, the cliff of Malpas is a natural space perched in overhang of the Vézère. With 350m long and 32m high, it constitutes a natural headland whose dimensions have marked the city with its presence at all times. A highly strategic axis of passage in certain periods of the history, it designed the face of the contemporary city, from the ramparts up to the current major axes of traffic. In view of the major risks of collapse it presented, the necessity of securing and of reinforcing this whole natural site gave rise to the project of a garden in belvedere over the valley.
The project of development asserts the natural stratification of the site and reintroduces a continuity of the vegetal grid to reconstitute the link between the high and the low city. This connection between both entities offers a walk on the cliff’s hillside, unfolding in split up laces a wood deck that escapes the constraint of the relief.
After several years of neglect, the park of the Monte-Cristo’s castle, Alexandre Dumas's garden, undergoes a restoration on the theme of the novel of Monte-Cristo.
The symbolism of the novel is addressed through a great rockery, mazes and a topiary garden.
Dug in a meander of the river, a dispersion zone of the floods of the Marne must be redeveloped into a departmental leisure center. The observation of the natural dynamics of the riparian environment as well as the discovery of prehistoric vestiges created new opportunities of development in particular those allowing relating the relation between the man and the rivers.
Signes recreates various aquatic environments (oxbows, ponds, gravel pits and ponds of fish farming by articulating them to one another. New techniques of revegetation and management leaning on the natural dynamics of the environment were experimented and applied, transforming the High Island into a research laboratory on the theme of the ecology and the sustainable development.
Footbridges, suspended platforms and monitoring devices allow the visitors to observe the transformations as well as the passage of migratory birds.
The pedestrian/cyclist development of the promenade of the aqueduct of Dhuis, constitutes an important challenge for the development of the Ile-de-France region.
On a linear path of 25 km, the promenade crosses two departments (Seine Saint Denis and Seine et Marne) and fifteen municipalities. The development proposed by the team emphasizes the rigor of a green ribbon lined by two pedestrian and cycle paths.
The aqueduct becomes a federative element, a walk opened up in balcony on a split landscape, improving the connection between the countryside and the city.
Connecting Brive-la-Gaillarde up North, Souillac sur la Dordogne, Cahors sur le Lot and Montauban in the South, the A20 highway crosses the complex reliefs of the Causses, causing clearings and sometimes elevations superior to 50m.
Signes was declared prize-winner of the international competition by proposing a particular treatment of the modeling and the sculpture of the banks associated to the plantations in the form of “staples”, linking the infrastructure with the crossed landscapes.
In November, 2002, Signes received the prize of the Golden ribbon (Ruban d’Or) by the Ministry for the Equipment for the earthworks and the landscaping realized on the A20.
The tramway offers to the Conurbation of Bordeaux a mode of transport up to its ambitions. The various routes answer to objectives clearly identified: to promote economic dynamism, to optimize the quality of life, to revalue the crossed spaces.
By proposing a new approach based on the installation of metallic inserts, Signes, associated with the architects Brochet-Lajus-Pueyo and with the designer Elizabeth of Portzamparc, confers the identity of the new network in the conurbation. This inserts forms a metallic net, complementary to the stone of the city, which accompanies the layout of the tramway and marks the crossings of the functions between the urban flows and the new equipment.
The minimalist intervention of Signes reflects a respectful work of insertion in an urban complex of great richness by integrating the urban space without upsetting it, in its improvement or its reassessment.
This zone of activity, essentially dedicated to the tertiary sector, is situated at the entrance of the Park Eurodisney.
Signes is in charge of the design of all the public and landscaped spaces of this future park. The composition plan develops from themed green axes conceived both on the classic model, as on that of the English garden.
The avenue of Neuilly connects Paris to La Defense in continuation of the historic axe designed by Le Nôtre. The sinking of the circulation at the heart of the city center of Neuilly freed a big central esplanade allowing for the reunification of the city center anew.
The proposed and implemented concept meant to protect the symbol of the major axe, which takes its origin in the Gardens of the Louvre, while composing a new garden on the scale of the city. On the scale of the major axis a large water garden takes shape, combining the effects of the mirror channel, of the big fountain and the water buffet. In the scale of the city, it is a city garden which erases the old inner-city highway, facilitates the pedestrian connections by integrating a new interchange hub subway/bus.
Awards : Millennium Marque 2000, RIBA Award 2001, AIA Award 2002, Civic Trust Landscape Award 2002, RTPI Commendation 2002
The Thames Barrier Park is the first park drawn in England by the French since Achille Duchesne one century ago.
The park was created in the new district of the Docks as a preliminary green space to the urbanization. It was designed on two scales: the scale of the English-style extensive park, and the scale of the garden through the creation of a hollow space, the " Green Dock ".
The Park is organized in wooded strips placed on big lawns arranged in random slides. To this basic structure comes to overlap a diagonal hollow, the " Green Dock " securing the connection between the historic docks and the Thames. This hollow garden symbolizes the river thanks to the waves of pruned yews alternating with flowery strips of " mixed-border " type.
It is a mixed composition, associating the rustic character of a big green space on the scale of the urbanization with that of the sophisticated garden, protected and opened on the space of the street. It is completed today by the work of Signes on the Aquarium in the bordering district of Silvertown Docks.
Restoration of the last "Landscaped garden" drawn in the 19th century by Achille Duchesne, author of the Castle of Chaumont, on promontory on the Loire valley.
The aim was to restore the spirit of this park by associating rigorous lines and perspectives on the internal parts and the big landscape. It was also a question of associating the sustainability and the renewal of the tree stratum after the almost total disappearance of the ageing conifers. This sustainability consisted also on important works of earthworks and drainage necessaries both for the reinforcement of the hillside on the Loire and for the right growth of vegetables.
The Urban Development Zone CITIS is a High-tech city of 30 ha situated in the entrance of the City of Hérouville Saint Clair; its conception originates from a voluntary landscape plan that leans on the natural geography of the site.
This landscape plan leans on the management of water of which devices are presented and serve as a basis to the general composition. It generates a structuring of the urbanization in two parts: a sector of which the geometrical public road plan gets organized by the pond, creating a true "urban" high-tech city, and a sector which most sinuous development accompanies the river and serves a new residential area opened on the golf course.
In the borders of the Val-d'Oise, the old Domain of Ninon de Lenclos, Villarceaux, is nested in the hollow of a valley of the Vexin. This heritage jewel of the Ile-de-France whose gardens were gradually designed and developed through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and finally in the 18th century, was reinvested by the Region of Ile-de-France.
To revitalize the Domain, it is the challenge raised by Signes, through the traces of the garden which used the natural circuit of the water created through history. Today, the reorganized ornamental lakes reinforce the terraces, the half-moons, the flowerbeds and the “vertugadins” from the inherited composition and house a new contemporary garden. It is by the flowerbed evocative of Androuet du Cerceau's embroidery, on a lace of water that goes on the history of the gardens.
Built at the heart of the West side in the Ile-de-France, the site of the French manufacturer Renault extends over more than 80 ha. Dedicated to the Research and the Development department, the buildings integrate into a landscaped park responding to strong environmental motivations.
Signes was able to create this landscaped ensemble through the presentation of the water management collected at the site. The regeneration and the natural purge of the water – thanks to the elements of the garden (ponds, waterfalls, channels, massifs of water plants) and its circuit in the site became the structural elements of the layout plan and the reaffirmation of a true park. The water as a main thread, accompanies the employees and the visitors today leading them along a river up to the restaurants, the social equipments and the lecture halls of the new factory.
The terrace of Saint Germaine is one of the biggest monuments of the Paris region; it assumes its full dimension in the relationship of balance with the landscape which surrounds it.
The creation of the A14 highway, and its passage at the foot of Saint Germain's terrace required the implementation of a new relationship between the Seine and the Terrace by a global reassessment of the hillside.
It was a question of mimicry between the motorway treatments and the grid of the old orchards in strips on the hillside. Besides the arrangements concerning the modeling of the ground, a new vegetal grid is created to reinforce, at the same time, the historic plots and the transition between Terrace and the Seine.
