Location:

Paris

Client:

Mayor of Paris

Status:

International invited competition of

10 teams

Scale:

37 hectares adjacent to River Seine

Constraints:

Flood zones 2 and 3, brownfield industrial site, multiple land ownership

Scope of Works:

Concept design, masterplan, phasing strategy, flood mitigation strategy

Paris Seine Masterplan

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An integrated planning and design approach was taken to tackle the complex site issues and identify solutions that would provide wider benefits and establish a clear strategy for redevelopment that would be safe, resilient and also create a unique sense of place.

The rich industrial, railway, and riparian heritage of the site inspired new architecture and urban realm typologies, across the site and into the surrounding neighbourhoods. Three urban nodes are each organized around a major mode of transport: Rail, River, & Road, creating a dynamic neighbourhood with sustainable communal transport at its core, connecting trains, river buses, cycle routes, and dedicated bus routes. These nodes form “catalysts” within a flexible masterplan enhancing the surrounding area, around which more conventional and economic buildings grow. Each node is like a stone dropped in water, causing a ripple, around, before coalescing in smaller ripples. They form nuclei of redevelopment, to create revitalisation zones that bring a quick enhancement to the area

Waterways link each of the nodes, as a reminder of the riverside location and a guide to the next node. These rills, swales, paths and pools form a navigation and way finding mechanism, leading inhabitants and visitors alike across the site. This aquatic framework doubles as part of a sustainable drainage system, slowing the flow of rainfall and filtering run off before it enters the watercourse. The waterways converge at the nodes to form aquatic features (rain squares, fountains, mirror ponds, flood parks), bringing the riparian environment to the surface. These blue/green waterways cascade down to the new river bus terminus within the ‘blue avenue’ that is the legendary Seine. This “Mise en ‘Seine’” celebrates the historical and environmental context, whilst creating a safe place to live.

Rather than relying on defences that are fallible, costly and increase floodrisk downstream, the masterplan developed by Baca makes space for water, both pluvial and fluvial. Water is accommodated on the site in a clearly managed and controlled way, which is safe, incremental and allows the continuity of daily life even in extreme floods. However, this space for water is in competition with high-density development, amenity space, space for renewable power provision, and transport demands.This therefore called for creative integrated planning solutions. An integrated technical solution was developed to tackle a number of constraints, such as flood risk and contamination, simultaneously. The strategy devised a logical and hierarchical approach to flooding: locating land uses in accordance to vulnerability and providing a system of safe havens and access routes, without requiring costly development and defence measures. These also help to reduce flood-risk to surrounding neighbourhoods. The masterplan illustrates how flood-risk design can be used to create more successful spaces rather than cowering behind defences.

Baca have teamed up with French counterparts atelier Villes & Paysages, and Egis France, bringing together local expertise and international knowledge.

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Introduction

The ZAC Seine Gare Vitry is one part of a major redevelopment along the banks of the River Seine in South East Paris. Despite over half the 37-hectare site being susceptible to flooding it was earmarked for over 6.5 million sq ft of development (including 4,500 new homes). The site is part of a river regeneration corridor that leads right up through the centre of Paris. Due to the scale of the project, different parts of the site will come available over time requiring dynamic and intelligent procedures that allow the requirements to evolve during the transition of the site from industrial to mixed-use. This transition is complicated by the variety of industrial uses present and forseen on the site, and their respective nuisances. Rather than designing a fixed and inflexible masterplan, a set of organisational principles categorise landuses, and indicate appropriate adjacencies, as well as design, remediation and management measures, to enable all landuses from industrial, through to educational and residential, to come forward simultaneously. This organic planning process allows the plan to flex and adjust depending on land availability, changing industries, and evolving local requirements.

Vision & Approach

It requires an integrated planning and design approach to tackle the complex site issues of flood-risk, land contamination, and phasing. The plan was to create a development that embraced water and nature at its heart and not to rely on flood defences. The proposal was to use the solution to managing flooding as the design catalyst to create a unique new neighbourhood at the same time as managing the threat from flooding. This shift in approach led to an innovative and highly integrated mixed-use, high density programme in a flood resilient neighbourhood. The three major public spaces that provide generous recreation areas act as buffers between the roads as well as flood attenuation areas during a flood event.

Nodes

The rich industrial, railway, and riparian heritage of the site inspired new architecture and urban realm typologies, across the site and into the surrounding neighbourhoods. Three urban nodes are each organized around a major mode of transport: Rail, River, & Road, creating a dynamic neighbourhood with sustainable communal transport at its core, connecting trains, river buses, cycle routes, and dedicated bus routes. These nodes form “catalysts” within a flexible masterplan enhancing the surrounding area, around which more conventional and economic buildings grow. Each node is like a stone dropped in water, causing a ripple, around, before coalescing in smaller ripples. They form nuclei of redevelopment, to create revitalisation zones that bring a quick enhancement to the area.

Water as a Wayfinder

Waterways link each of the nodes, as a reminder of the riverside location and a guide to the next node. These rills, swales, paths and pools form a navigation and way finding mechanism, leading inhabitants and visitors alike across the site. This aquatic framework doubles as part of a sustainable drainage system, slowing the flow of rainfall and filtering run off before it enters the watercourse. The waterways converge at the nodes to form aquatic features (rain squares, fountains, mirror ponds, flood parks), bringing the riparian environment to the surface. These blue/green waterways cascade down to the new river bus terminus within the ‘blue avenue’ that is the legendary Seine. This Mise-en-‘Seine’ celebrates the historical and environmental context, whilst creating a safe place to live.