St-Étienne : Couriot

Urban park
Definition study
Image renewal
Heritage park
Reuse of an industrial site
Territorial resonance

Client :
Ville de Saint-Etienne

BASE paysagistes – Team representative
+ L’AUC + ON + OGI + Polyprogramme + AEU

Budget / 17 M€
Surface / 37 ha
Date / 2009

Saint – Étienne is gravitating towards a new contemporary image and Couriot needs to adapt to this.

By associating the overall urban revitalisation strategy for Saint Étienne with the mining site and its charged history, we incorporate the site in the transformation of the city. The project is about transforming the negative image of the mining site, incorporating the site into the new urban identity, associating it with the dynamic, productive image of Saint-Etienne, all whilst preserving and embodying elements of the past. Our project was structured around two development aspects:

– a public square in connection with the city (parties, events, etc.)

– the presence of water (an element extremely lacking in Saint-Étienne)

Different design strategies and elements are combined to create an image of a reactivated site; understanding the historical structural composition, opening out of the museum towards the coal heaps, establishing the occupation of the park, the movement of the landscape and a logic for setting, assuring accessibility, functional organisation and creating a fun, sports and events program as well as a community kitchen garden. This image, far from being abstract, allows the historical composition of the Couriot site to resurface, and to reanimate the relationships it once had with the city and its territory. It is in this process of seeking structural and spatial coherence that the future Couriot park finds its legitimacy.

Urban projects – other projects :