Exit Paysagistes: The project takes place in a former private garden of a master house seen as a protected fallow land, only guessed by the flowing vegetation over its old outer wall. The aim was to keep the nature of this garden transforming the place into a public garden where the local residents could take a walk and relax and where the mothers and nursemaids could meet and talk while the children play together on the playground.

A new long sinuous walk crosses the garden from north to south and stages the diversity of spaces inside the garden. This way is a small path which overlaps the geometry of the former central path lined of chestnut trees and lime trees which used to lead from the entrance to the master house. The garden Edouard Glissant has two different faces: on one hand, the garden seen from the central, rectilinear and direct standing path and on the other hand, the dense green pockets contained by the sinuous path on both sides of the central way. One set follows another. Each one adopts typical ecosystem and is characterised by specific plants. The uses (playground, walk, nap, relaxation, observation,…) are organized according to the setting facilities of each space and to their program in term of biology. Nests, shelters and refuges take place inside the “living walls”. Some reserves made by drilling, stapling or molding in the concrete walls welcome the target species.

The pond is fed by rainwater collected from the roof of a building which has been diverted. This system allows to save a lot of water and insure a regular quality (which increases the fauna), to create a broth (allowing oxygenation of the water) and to create an important flow (also favourable to the oxygenation of the pond). No garden water is rejected into the municipal wastewater collection system. The whole water is infiltrated into the garden ground due to the permeability of all the grounds or after a storage in the cesspool.

The place reflects a liveliness in term of fauna and flora. The wildness used to allow it as the respectful and harmonious management will do it. The presence of a luxurious nature everywhere, the reinstallation of native plants, the new composition superimposed to the former one, the use of contrasted materials will bring to this new garden of Villeurbanne a contemporary, playful and romantic character.

team: Exit Paysagistes, Techni’Cité, Biodiversita
location: Villeurbanne, France
design year: 2009
year of construction: 2011
area: 3700 m²
budget: 500 000 euros HT
image credits: Exit Paysagistes Associés