The process of re-centralizing public infrastructure around a belvedere square is soberly composed in a way that integrates the main elements of the surrounding landscape. These unified and readable spaces conduct to the emergence of genuine intergenerational and cultural sharing that corresponds to the epicenter of the project, and constitutes an open door to the swamps, currently rejected and hardly perceptible from the public space.
Building differently does not necessarily imply a radical posture on a formal level… the Ec’Hotel is thought as a string of cabins, gabions with simple and regular shapes combined with vernacular architectural style while assuming a measured contemporary radicalism.
The departmental road creates a break between the coast and the hinterland without any clear connection between the sea and the city. The dune of the coast is the first reason; no view towards the sea is possible upstream of this one.
The project asserts the place of Varaville at the interface of two markedly “aquatic” landscapes: on the one hand, the sea, and on the other, the wetlands.
The aim of this construction is to create permeability and connections between the coast and the hinterland, between the maritime city and the gardening areas. In this way, the place becomes a kind of staple that joins both areas.
To create a graduation between wetlands and city, the project works with, and not against, the risk of flooding.
