The town of Tréméreuc has experienced an unusual urban past. The former town core was replaced following the arrival of the railway in the late 19^th century, by a new centre in the shape of a village strip along a new road (county highway RD118 towards Dinard) which quickly became the major thoroughfare. The recent creation of a bypass for that road (county highway RD7766) has led to a new interest in the possibility of renewing and reviving public spaces. The rural aspect of this town featuring a very loose urban fabric deserved to be highlighted.
Consequently, the project focused on working towards a very “green” public space. It created a genuine pedestrian thoroughfare extending from the town’s only remaining shop, a workingman’s bar/tobacconist/restaurant. A bus shelter for school buses became a public space to foster conviviality. The parking spots were made of a grassy earth and stone mix (except by the restaurant).
All of the verges along the houses and property limits were given perennial plants to enhance the verdant garden aspect of this unusual village main street.

This project was part of the Eco-Faur scheme.

Feedback (last visit in 2016)

• The landscaping is gradually settling in. The slow-down effect seems to be functioning and the pedestrian thoroughfare appears to be well utilised.

The renewal of Goudelin town centre enhances public areas by giving pedestrians their rightful place back. Simultaneously, the operation has highlighted the shops and public facilities and led them to comply with accessibility standards.
The spaces to the right of the school and town hall were reassembled into genuine public squares that foster a revived conviviality:

• A small green, complete with benches and gardens where parents may wait for their children to leave school.
• A low wall in front of the town hall for use for group photos at ceremonies and other municipal events.

This project was part of the Eco-Faur scheme.

Feedback (last visit in 2015)

• Asphalt on small surfaces is not suitable using the mechanical laying technique that requires large, obstacle-free spaces. The joints made from the cement mix used in percolating the concrete in buffers, inspection hatches and other sealed elements do not connect.
• Our first use of shape-memory bollards has proven rather conclusive… except that while we were laying them in, passers-by wanted to test this new material!
• Cullet added to the cladding of the low shale walls

The renewal of the town hall square was part of a minimalist approach suitable to a small village, aiming at highlighting the recently restored older town hall buildings.
The existing vast grassy area has been accentuated and its geometric shape has been formalised with a long, curving low rubblestone wall which echoes the town hall’s stone façade.
Towards the town hall’s main entrance, an ample thoroughfare was designed in such a way as to provide majestic status to this route towards the community centre and a nearby car park.
Small ancient monoliths were highlighted in keeping with the low stone wall, while a few perennial plants were set to adorn the foot of an ancient blind wall.
A few green oak plantations are occasionally added to the existing pine trees.

The renewal of Place March’arit Fulup and Rue Geron Ledu aims at returning the locales to their original status as major urban spaces by accentuating the surrounding quality buildings. The plaza has undergone in-depth redesigning in the way it functions and in its topography through the creation of the following:

• A lower, mineral section devoted to highlighting the buildings and the shops, and suitable for hosting funfairs
• An upper, semi-pedestrian section, featuring gardens around the church and its enclosure, and including the library’s built-up cluster

The new retaining walls are set with granite rubble as an extension of the cemetery walls. They provide the upper section with a promontory overlooking the town centre and emphasising the distant landscape features. It is framed by ornamental apple trees. While a majestic flight of steps links it to the lower section, there is a level access on the sides.
In the lower section, the natural difference in height, which can reach up to 10%, is alleviated by a series of landings. These are made using large, irregular slabs of granite that provide a foundation. A solitary oak highlights the spot with its symbolic presence.
Rue Geron Le Du borders on the town’s oldest part in this sector. Its distinctive features are the contiguous facades and the overall confinement. Since it could not accommodate comfortable pavements, the project has blended the pavement and the street into one continuous level. Consequently, the street features a central gutter, thereby accentuating the thoroughfare’s semi-pedestrian purpose. The safety of pedestrians relies on smashed granite bollards that act as a visual obstacle and encourage vehicles to slow down.
As a result of the small budget, the ground got a single asphalt treatment, contrasting with the granite used for the surface furniture and finishes (benches, landings, bollards, gutters, doorsteps). The upper section of the plaza was the only part to be treated with deactivated concrete.

This project was part of the Eco-Faur scheme.

Feedback (last visit in 2014)

• We performed a test using stainless steel square studs: they proved delicate in terms of the layout pattern and were damaged by traffic. So we replaced them under the warranty with standard stainless steel round studs.
• The resin used for ground markings had a short lifespan.
• Following a change of municipal authorities and a change in their mindset, the landscaping is gradually being transformed and partly destroyed.
• The area is saturated with municipal window boxes.
• Increasing quantities of signposts, barriers etc. are appearing.
  • Some planted flowerbeds have been replaced with lawns
• The ornamental apple trees have been filled in around their base, and their rock mulch was replaced by turf, thus leading to their death.
• The asphalt made with light aggregate is gradually developing a patina, but only on the utilised parts.
• The development’s conditional lot, stretching from the south-east entrance by the stadium to the end of Rue Geron Ledu, has been handed to… a surveyor!

The municipality of Langueux was in the middle of major urban changes as a result of its proximity to the city of Saint-Brieuc, gradually going from being a large village to becoming a full-fledged town.
Accordingly, the village centre and especially the main facilities were reorganised, including an extension of the town hall, a restructuring of the post-office and a redeployment of school facilities. The development of pedestrian alleyways was part of a strategy to deliver a genuine town hall square in the mid-term.
Those alleyways promote a safe environment to walk in on a daily basis and they highlight the old village architectural heritage. As highly protected areas, they provide an opportunity to display extremely lush, exotic plants to serve as a counterpoint for the future town hall forecourt and for the renewal of the Langueux high street in a mostly mineral approach. The alleyways amount to a genuine continuous public garden that will be of benefit to the acclimatisation of plant species from the five continents, in keeping with the approach of the treasured botanical gardens found in Brittany.

Feedback (2015)

• Having gone through a difficult set up caused by poor planting conditions, the vegetation is now abundant.
• The lack of sufficient tree stratum makes the landscaping somewhat bare in the off-season.
• The elephant garlic blossoms are too often used as footballs!
• Local residents are making excellent use of the building vicinities.
• The bamboos are becoming really invasive.
• The alleyways were given a name through a competition run by the town hall. The lucky winner was a child who called it the “Venelle aux Chats” (The Cats’ Alleway).

The project consisted, in the short term, in landscaping the vicinity of a cultural centre, and of a gymnasium in a subsequent second lot. Located at the town’s entrance, the land has a significant slope. Landscaping the outdoor spaces was an opportunity to highlight the facade as seen from the access road into the municipality and to unify the site’s existing facilities, namely the school, playgrounds, cemetery, Indochina War memorial, pool and town centre. The land was remodelled into a succession of plateaux bordered by banks or ditches to collect rainwater so it flows into the Indochina War memorial pool. The plateaux enhance the dramatic view over the surrounding valleys and countryside.
The immediate vicinity of the existing and future facilities was unified by treating the ground with stabilised soil, reviving the original village atmosphere and enhancing the existing architectural relics (a fountain and a bread oven). The tree plantations mainly include oaks, to replace the local horticultural varieties which had been making the area very commonplace.

Feedback (last visit in 2014)

• The municipality has produced attractive line patterns of flowery prairies. It is simple, clever and effective.

The Glisy church is located on the edge of the Somme valley plateau, which it overlooks. About thirty years ago, a hedge of thuja was planted around the area, gradually blocking the panoramic view across the distant landscape which could be admired from this foremost public space in the village. Consequently, the project has revived the natural lookout provided by the church square by removing the hedge and thinning out the woods that had grown along the bank below. We created a peripheral walkway lined with lime trees (to be trimmed into a screen) in order to highlight the focus upon the valley landscape.
The vicinity of the church was restructured in such a way as to produce a link between the church and the war memorial. Perennial plant flowerbeds were marked off and contained in wooden structures of a constant height, emphasising the land’s natural slope.
The marsh in the valley was given improved access and appeal by setting up a monumental stairway leading from the square, which links directly to an existing subway running beneath the railway line.

Feedback (2009)

• Although the rammed earth benches were actually manufactured, they have not been installed on the site.
• A handrail (made of treated wood and apple green metal!) was installed after the stairway was completed, in order to obey new accessibility requirements which had not been in effect during the design phase.

Candas is a small rural municipality whose identity is largely rooted in its former farming activity. The village went through unavoidable changes and was thus confronted to the gradual disappearance of its urban structure, which had relied on the wattle and daub farmhouses for its street facades. The vast lateral embankments lining the street front had led to too much recalibration of the main streets, giving them an open-road-like aspect which would disturb the notions of urbanity and centrality.
The project consisted in working on the embankments so as to restore pedestrian continuity by creating linear gardens alongside the housing, featuring a central path and plantations and made with the help of the residents, while the shopping strips were given a more urban feel by creating pavements and parking on quality mineral soil. Road safety and urbanity were reinforced by recalibrating the high street to more sensible dimensions and creating a pedestrian plaza that includes the town hall, the church, the school and the post-office, and by removing a street that was not very busy.

Feedback (last visit in 2008)

• The grassy embankments are gradually being overrun by a discordant variety of plants lacking any kind of overall logic.
• Part of the landscaping was destroyed when they created a mini-market (the path painfully ends at the unattractive rear of the building, and the adjacent embankment has been turned into an asphalt car park).
• The trees appear to have trouble growing.
• The house fronts where we had expected the locals to grow their own plants finally did end up being tended by the residents.
• The perennial plant flowerbeds did not last long. The linear plantations, which we included as an echo of the pretty vegetable patches one could sometimes notice in the backyards, were apparently not a success… the flowers were perceived as not being intense enough as compared to the annual plants used previously, and the aesthetics of vegetable patches were not quite “fashionable” at the time the project was designed!