Ilex: This 45 hectares alluvial forest is right in the city, a stone’s throw from “Tête d’Or Park” and the “Cité Internationale”. The challenge was to create a new park in the chain of the parks on the banks of the River Rhône: a space for observing free nature and the open urban place. The “Urban Nature Park” proposed here reconciles public functions with the great natural quality of the site. It invents a space of freedom, a new amenity right in the middle of the Lyon urban area. Two themes governed the project:
– Studied density of planting: the penetration of light and the layout of some paths as factors for the spontaneous regeneration of plants.
– The organization of a lasting, adaptable method of management together with the City of Villeurbanne, the project client.
The landscape designer becomes a creative manager and the user a landscape designer.

Client: Ville de Villeurbanne
Designers: Ilex [paysage urbanisme] (mandataire), Cap Vert Ingénierie, Agibat
Date: Opened in november 2001
Surface Area: 45 ha
Image Credits: Erick Saillet