A4E / Macro lot ZAC Rive de Seine

How do we integrate ourselves to an established working district and an uncertain, but burgeoning, new neighborhood?
How do we retain the individual identities of three separated programs and allow them to interact within a single, shared plot? Breaking from the typical heaviness of the surrounding masses, providing an intermediate and more human scale, creating links to Place Jules Guesde and the new district, defining views, avoiding vis-a-vis, diversifying urban typologies – these are the tools we will use to cultivate the swept site. We will push the city through the new district and extend it inside of our own site. By opening up to Jules Guesde, we invite visitors to walk in and use the internal paths as a new network of  interaction.
The presence of the tram and the school indicates a need for connections, showing the dynamism and the strategic position of the site. This intermediate scale analysis led to medieval cities, which revealed a massing strategy that employed several fragmented, but intimate spaces between buildings. Relationships between buildings such as views, overshadowing, and the passages between were used to define the irregular frame. It was then further refined to obey the master plan and site restrictions. All of these challenges were integral to the discovery of a scheme that offers a variety of character in public spaces and new typologies for living and working spaces. In our project, the Cartesian urban context disappears as you penetrate the block and discover a scale and complexity of urbanity closer to Sienna