Calais : Design of the sea front

Today, the seaside neighbourhood is being revived; it is undergoing an image transformation. Our approach is based around the renovation of the peninsula; opening and irrigating the area and reconnecting calaisien public spaces in a chain. The project articulates itself around four ways that we experience life in public space at the seafront: we move, we contemplate, we play and we discover.

The scheme increases the influence and the use of the promenade and encourages the public to contemplate the site. There are themed pathways; certain pedestrian routes are dedicated to pause and to contemplation with specific furniture whilst other pathways are dedicated principally to mobility and discovery (they have a more cinematic relationship to the space which is enhanced by the sequencing of activities.) These pathways make up the skeleton which facilitates mobility along the seafront with nuggets of program along the promenade including a belvedere and atypical artistic objects. There are poles of intensity with program linked to play and urban sports, but also to polyvalent, multi seasonal places. Finally, the installation of a dune park, englobing these programmatic layers creates a rich and diverse edge. The buildings are brought together through a landscape which is teaming with zest for life.