2010


Ramparts Garden

Saint-Michel neighbourhood

Bordeaux

Coming to the garden as one unveils a secret 

The Ramparts Garden is a private place in the heart of the Saint-Michel neighbourhood, in an area where local green spaces are rare. Inaccessible and invisible, it is one of those urban nuggets that dot our cities and that could help us live in them better. The garden is the property of the Ministry of Defence and is used by a Professional Reconversion School.

We propose to reveal and open it through an action called Lieu Possible (“Possible Place”).
Surprising island of calm and intimacy in the heart of the urbanity, we choose to keep these qualities and to propose to discover this garden as we unveil a secret.

We set up a program inviting to stroll, to drink tea, to read, to listen, to relax, to sleep or to dine. And we invite Cabanon Vertical who imagine the Mobol, a long ribbon of wood to magnify the place and accommodate all the necessary uses : a large table, deckchairs, a sleeping room.

 

The Utopian Urbanism Workshops

The Ramparts Garden is the concretization of the Utopian Urbanism Workshops carried out in the Saint-Michel neighbourhood in 2006. Discovered during an Urban Exploration Workshop with schoolchildren in 2001, we will return to this place with the inhabitants of the Utopian Urbanism Workshops in order to imagine a public future for it. Then we will take 4 years before we can reveal it more widely, on a temporary way.

In 2013 the City of Bordeaux will become the owner and open it permanently. It will keep the name we gave it when we discovered it.

 

The concept of Lieux possibles (“Possible Places”):

Lieux possibles is a project of poetic diversion and temporary activation of urban spaces, invested by multidisciplinary artistic interventions and other proposals of uses. Lieux possibles is a nomadic, multisite and interdisciplinary event.

Ingredients : places in the city, banal and extraordinary, under-exploited or inaccessible, ordinary or little known, human relations, imagination, desire, artistic presences and strangeness.

Action : shake it all up until temporary situations arise that need to be enjoyed.

Result : nourish the urban imagination, activate the creative potential of these places and question our values of use in the daily life of our cities.


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At the crossroads of art, territories and populations, our approach aims to promote the transition to sustainable, shared and welcoming cities, by proposing alternative ways of imagining and building our living environment and by exploring new forms of public space.