Lille Rives de la Haute Deûle
Lille - 2005 -2030
Rives de la Haute Deûle/ Surface: 65 HA/ 260 000 m2 . Location: Lille, France Program: housing units, offices, public facilities . Calendar: 2005 - 2030 . Architect-Urban planner : Jean-Pierre Pranlas-Descours , Landscape architect: Anne-Sylvie Bruel. ( Team : Pauline Lamperier, Corinne Jaurand , Zhaoying Zhu, Christophe Delmar ). Construction ongoing
Emmanuelle Borne wrote in Architecture d’Aujourd’hui( AA July 2019):
“The Rives de la Haute-Deûle mixed development zone in Lille, which has been undergoing significant transformation for 20 years, is undoubtedly one of the few to deserve the title of eco-district. This former industrial site is now a new district based entirely on an open-air hydraulics network. Jean-Pierre Pranlas-Descours in charge of the urban scale masterplan with Anne-Sylvie Bruel landscape architect, has drawn up a set of specifications that not only define volumes and building dimensions but also draw on the surroundig landscape and favour the use of one single material, clay, in a variety of hues, depending on the building".
The Rives de la Haute Deûle district in Lille serves as an example in articulating the relationship between local and global scales. This site contributes to a wider debate on the emergence of a new model for urban development, which, in turn, directly questions contemporary forms of density and mixed-use development.
The site is currently occupied with various industrial and craft activities, housing, as well as remaining brownfield sites. It is an archetypal example of territorial occupation that can be found in many European cities.
This approach takes into consideration contemporary conditions found within metropolitan territories, to develop mutation strategies on different levels. The project accept and welcome hybridisation within contemporary territories, thus stimulating a natural evolutionary process.
This gradual mutation leans on several different goals to respond to new urban conditions:
- Urban mutation based on industrial heritage, through the renovation of the Leblan-Lafont Factory and its subsequent transformation into a tech-hub: EuraTechnologies is the largest start-up incubator in Europe with 150 000 m2 of office space, connected on a global scale with over 300 companies, including IBM, Capgemini, and Microsoft. It is the only incubator in Europe to benefit from an exclusive partnership with Stanford University.
- Economic development through hybrid programming: creating a resilient city that combines housing, offices, and services through reversible building strategies
- Supporting social development through assertive and visible actions such as opening isolated sited and connecting low-income neighbourhoods found on the fringes of the site
- Offering accessible spaces for a mixed, non-segregated city with a new road network and different options to cross the Haute-Deûle canal
- Attending to the densification of the area, on both smaller and larger scales, with the creation of an entirely above-ground drainage system with canals and landscaped swales linked to the Haute-Deûle canal.