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At the core of our team’s concerns was the design of an urban development appeared supporting and even reinforcing the ecological conservation of the Anse-à-l’Orme écoterritory. From a philosophical point of view, the intervention’s cornerstone is to establish an attitude through which natural and physical qualities are regarded as the structuring properties of a new community and around which a single image must be forged. It then becomes imperative to identify certain latent structures of the landscape to define the guidelines of an overall plan sensitive to the site’s ecological characteristics. The real-estate development must be seen as a complement to ecological conservation rather than an obstacle to it. At first sight, we identified certain structuring elements – the existing agricultural grid, the catchment area, the solar orientation as well as the network of natural environments and wetlands. The imposition of the agricultural grid is a reminder of the site’s historical vocation and its development. In addition, the adaptation of the existing drainage ditches could be used to establish a network of natural and gravitating rain drainage allowing the infiltration of rainwater, thus feeding the wetlands and the two existing streams and respecting the catchment area. Our analysis of the catchment area also led us to locate the prolongation of the Pierrefonds boulevard directly on the peak, the highest axis of the site – literally the new district’s “high street” dividing the site roughly in two. This layout supports a natural drainage, without major modification of the site’s topography.
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