Reims (51) Industrial wasteland of the Verreries Mécaniques de Champagne

The site of the Verreries Mécaniques de Champagne, an industrial wasteland and its close environment, is projected towards a new land use to create a residential district in the urban fabric of Reims.

Composing a residential district from an abandoned industrial site raises the question of the relationship with its past identity. It is through the organization of its road network that we will propose a relationship with the history of this site. This problem is similar to that of most new residential districts being created in France (reclaiming urban wasteland inserted into the urban fabric).

We approach this project through all the questions related to the contemporary city to try to answer the questions of the next decades, that is to say to build a "living city".

Here, the fertility of the soil is a first step to compose a sustainable vegetal grid.

In this framework, the built volumes must always fade away in favor of the horizons composed by the plant foliage.

The main axes of the industrial site become the new roads of this district. From the latter, a vegetal screen composes the general framework of this project. In a second phase, the buildings will fit into this idea of the city forest.