NANTES – QUARTIER ATLANPOLE // non construit

The Atlanpole project is novel solution baths in its determination preserve the qualities of a beautiful landscape, and in its formalization of open blacks forming districts. Set in lovely countryside close ta Nantes. along the river Erdre. the project posits a small technological and university town.

This large-scale approach is superimposed onto a matrix of parks, surrounded by the fronts of an urban archipelago federating several Sites along a visual axis: a strip 4 km. in

length and 60 m. wide, and oriented toward the distant Brittany Tower, which signals the centre of Nantes and defines the territory, thus putting an end ta destructive urban morsellations.

The dense, built blacks form neighborhood units in an unalloyed relationship with nature (since no

roadways come between them). The “islands” surround beautiful marshland and forest, a configuration structured by concrete li nes running perpendicular to the major axis at 400 meter intervals. The system of open blacks houses unpredictable briefs, schools, industrial parks, workshops, housing, laboratories and services, on a 60 x 90 m grid.

Each architect selects a surface a rea and submits a draft plan to the town planner on the basis of volumetric rules. This allows the planner ta progressively evolve a chequered urban layout on the basis of the various projects.

The volumetric rule for the open blacks imposes street fronts covering 50% of the perimeters, reserving the rest for avenues and public or private gardens.

Recent economic trends have led to an decline in planning applications for this technological melting-pot. The park matrix is in place. Unfortunately, however, the municipal authorities have abandoned the project and left the architect with no mission to adapt the project to a different brief