Croizamus Eco-neighbourhood – QUÉVEN (Morbihan)
RetourCompletion year Work in progress
Contracting Authority Municipality of Quéven
Mission Creating a new neighbourhood structured as a ZAC (Integrated Development Zone) and containing 350 housing units, as well as project-managing the public spaces.
Project Management Team Landscape architects and designers Laure Planchais (mandated agent), Consulting engineers SAFEGE, Light designers Coup d’Eclat (sketching the ZAC completed by Cap Lorient Federation of Municipalities)
Surface area 17 hectares
Budget €4.5m exc. VAT
Ratio €27 exc. VAT per m²
The project is intended to take root between the various mismatched residential areas along the city limits. It will rekindle urban links and provide a genuine identifiable, qualitative place to underline the municipality’s northern limits.
The area consists of two hillsides, one of which is relatively steep (about 10% natural slope). The housing is established on high ground to take advantage of the views and sunlight, while the central part in the valley is kept as a nature area including wetlands.
The public spaces are landscaped in such a way as to encourage the integration of the motor-impaired despite the steepness of the slope, providing a vocabulary that stems from the standard types of organisation and reinterpreted plantations (villages united by semi-pedestrian links, hedged banks, small walls, orchards etc.). In addition, there are many public spaces that are semi-pedestrian (small squares, shared lanes, lookouts overlooking the landscape). The operation is handled by a rainwater treatment system that is mostly open-air and collects water from both the public spaces and the constructible plots.
We have also applied an energy-savings approach to the lighting of the site, as well as taking care to reduce any risks of light pollution.
The final touch is provided by games in keeping with the site’s character, and educational signage about the trees and about rainwater management.
The landscaping works have required a prior major clean-up of the site (previously a breaker’s yard and a fertilizer factory).
Feedback (last visit in 2015)
- The ZAC has experienced difficulties, which has led the contracting authority to terminate the project management team’s contract, so as to continue the works as a public company as of 2015. Nevertheless, the fundamentals in organising the site and structuring the rainwater system were set up in time under the guidance of our project management team (basins and lookouts). Let’s hope that the municipality will succeed in meeting the challenge it has taken on in completing the project.