A new lease on life

The climate issue is universal. It concerns us all, everywhere and at all times. The new climate paradigm we face will force us to rethink our models, from agriculture to architecture. Paris will certainly have to adapt to these new conditions to protect itself from the uncertain. So, in the context of an overheating metropolis, how can the universal issue of climate change make the “limit void” of the Quai d'Ivry interchange and the fragments of architecture that gravitate around it, and more generally the Paris ring road, a unifying environment?

At the Quai d’Ivry, on the traces of Thiers’ fortifications, between Paris and Ivry, bordered by the Parisian river and railway tracks, stands an interchange of the Périphérique with wide, shady decks, resting on the dune-like landscape of sand that is revealed only at the center of the François Mitterrand Library. Here, one finds a liberated horizon where the sky, illuminated between the branches of the interchange, and the earth seem to meet, almost emphasizing it. Driven by the constructive vision of the ZAC Paris Rive Gauche, the viaducting of the interchange in 2014 and the cancellation of the Bruneseau project in 2022 have created a new intermezzo landscape, a residual void. Deeply rooted in an industrial history still visible today, the project connects the existing infrastructures and architectures around this void through rehabilitation and addition. From wind wells to swimmable basins along the périphérique, to the climate shelter, the project shapes an archipelago of complementary fragments, making water and climate its subjects, and the void its unifying tool that links the diversity of full spaces. Aware that the Périphérique infrastructure is intrinsically linked to its marginal condition, this "residual boundary void" becomes, in the context of a 50°C Paris, a climatic square, a unifying environment. The project is an attempt at a new sketch. It questions the city and its creation, the role of voids, infrastructures, architectures, and our daily life. It seeks to bring these elements together around the climatic issue to create an autonomous and interconnected whole.