My project has 3 major intensions:

Promote harmony and interaction among the 4 major programs ( residential, commercial, industrial and transport );

relink the 2 sides of the towns separated by the railway;

promote ecological and better life by relinking the water bodies and the greenery in the site.

A lively place should be design in a sense of unity in diversity, which can be achieved by hybridizing programs with balancing the program polarities in the site.

Existing situation

Different programs are separated clearly when being planned.

Residential area and transport hub far from the shopping centre.

The waiting land is not be used in its full potential.

Heavy industries such as oil storage are hazardous to residential areas nearby.

Waterfront, which has huge environmental qualities, is far away from where people live.

Strategy:

I define the context of the site into 8 elements, represented by eight colors.

At first, I tried to link the 4 major poles – potential, transport, shopping and industrial pole together by brutal circulatory connection like mega-structures; but a more modest way to re-link the scattered programs and element is to adjust the polarity of the poles and the interface areas among the poles by enhancing/keeping/inserting/removing different programs.

I will select several critical moments in the site such that the flow of polarities will be changed and the 3 intentions can be achieved.

Selection of moments in Villeneuve le Roi:

Promote existing program – the recycling industries

Program merge and separation – e.g. market + pub

Program plug-in to existing /abandoned structure – park and shopping area making use of abandoned bridge of railway and crude oil tank structures

Etc.

References:

KCAP – Situation

Residential projects in Rotterdam

Mutation – Rem Koolhaas

Présentation du projet Parc-en-Seine sur le site de Nexity

Séjour et salle à manger d’une maison Parc-en-Seine

La route, marquant le seuil entre les industries et le chantier de logements.

Parallèle avec “Mon Oncle” de Jacques Tati: la question de l’apparence, de l’idéal.

Images du documentaire de Pierre Huyghe “Streamside Day”, tenter de faire jaillir l’aspect fictif d’un nouveau quartier pourtant traditionnel.

Le travail de Julius Schulmann, qui par l’orientation du regard, fait ressortir uniquement le beau de l’architecture.

Image extraite de “Blow Up” de Michelangelo Antonioni.

La question de la representation, et de notre rapport à la photographie, longtemps considérée comme “preuve irréfutable”.

Des nos jours, pouvons-nous la remettre en cause?