Île Seguin, jardin de préfiguration

Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Île Seguin, jardin de préfiguration

Boulogne-Billancourt, France

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The garden of Seguin Island, the first public space to open on the island covering roughly two hectares, prefigures the central garden planned for the island’s future comprehensive development.

This prefiguration serves as a foundation, a preliminary and temporary stratum that will evolve gradually as planning and development continue. The creation of a fully realized and sophisticated garden in the center of a construction site didn't make much sense. The geometrical composition of the garden reactivates and puts into play the memory of the place. The island is almost completely artificial, having been, constructed in part as the foundation base of the now closed Renault factory. What remained was a massive concrete foundation, perforated throughout by compression pits. The garden's mineral surfaces are inscribed within these traces, reinterpreting them: simple concrete rectangles and areas of decomposed granite help organize the succession of spaces over a series of levels where both lawns and pilot plantings proliferate. This temporary vegetation will be replaced later on by perennial vegetation adapted specifically to the new urban environment. The garden serves as the privileged observatory upon the island's current construction, as well as more widely upon the surrounding area's rapid transformation.

The garden succeeds in presenting and framing in a joyous and playful manner the construction taking place around it: immense sandboxes for children, experimental and participatory gardens, picnic areas. It is as well a place where outdoor events and a restaurant can easily be set up. But above all else it provides an access to the public into the heart of the Seine valley. From a new point of view, the expanse and beauty of the hills can be rediscovered.     

data
Year:
2009 to 2010
Status:
Built
Program:
Public spaces, Gardens
Client:

 

SAEM Val de Seine Aménagement

Project Team:

MDP Michel Desvigne, Paysagiste (lead consultant)
IHA Inessa Hansch Architecte 
AIK, Yann Kersalé, public lighting 
Ruedi Baur, Design

Area:

2,3ha (5,6 acres)

  • Project  area : 2.3 hectares(5,6 acres)
    Planted area : 1,6 hectares  (3,9 acres)
    Lawns area : 7500 m2 (1,8 acres)