The project reads like an allegory of the river Loire, mainspring of the city. Here, contrary to common practice, flow determines the trail, not the opposite. The water soft trail matches the main road traffic allowance, treated in asphalt pavement. Traffic spaces that are occasionally used are like the backwaters. Their size can allow car traffic but their treatment identifies them as being shared spaces where soft modes are primary. For the treatment of the market square, townhall, ramps and stairways, the granite bush-hammered paving, an extremely hard element, as hard as a bridge pier, opposes the system’s fluency. Public space is vegetalized with flowered varieties that are characteristic of the river Loire banks : willow oak, ash, locust, … Video Télénantes – janvier 2018
Location Place Jeanne d’Arc – Ancenis (44) Project management Ville d’Ancenis / LAD SELA Landscape urban planner Magnum RN Artelia Mobility Métavision Status Delivered Schedule 2017 Mission Preliminary urban survey + public space works supervision Construction costs 2.5M€ excl.taxes Project area 0.8 hectares Images Patrick Miara
Echoing the cracked surface of the Loire dried up riverbed, the splitted limestone paving, with its random sizes, makes up a sort of mosaic on the ground. It is calibrated, such as the embankments holding back the sand and canalizing the minor bed of the river : thus with a rhythm, the treatment is simple without being monotonous.
Magnum is an agency that is attentive to the needs of project management and who know how to take into account the uses in the design of the project. They are also present on the worksite, which is very much welcome in the detailed follow-up of such complex projects and which guarantees a real link between conception and making.
— Renaud BOURGET, Technical Services and Urbanism manager, Ville d’Ancenis
