EVA TOOM  portfolio

VIEILLE MER phase 1 

 

TERRITORIAL AND URBAN ANALYSES

TERRITORIAL AND URBAN STRATEGY

A fifth year project

 

The Vieille Mer is a small river that runs through the town of Saint-Denis in the northern suburbs of Paris. However, around fifty years ago the stream was put in an underground pipeline. Today plans are being made to reopen it and to reintegrate it into the townscape.

 

The first phase of the project was carried out in a four-people group. Our urban strategy is inspired by the natural process of symbioses, precisely the mycorrhiza - the symbiosis between the roots of a plant and a fungus. This type of symbiosis is particularly advantageous because of the fact that the hyphae of the fungus penetrate inside the living tissues of the plant roots so that the two organisms can nourish each other more efficiently. In our project, the same functional system enables to solve different urban problems as well as some specific issues concerning the Vieille Mer. The Vieille Mer once reopened and naturalized would be a symbiote whose filaments enter the living fabric of the city improving its functioning, connectivity, the rain water management and create favorable conditions to the renewal of the city and its image. The different aspects of this strategy of urban symbiosis are: rain water management and displaying the water in the city; setting up motor-free connections like green promenades and bicycle paths, requalification and linking into a network the existing green spaces; establishing a better connectivity and new centralities; creating by all of this new dynamics, urban regeneration and densification and new ways of living.