Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
Description: Innovation and Education Campus Park
Location: Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
Mission : all design stages
Current stage: under construction
Period: 2022-2025
Area: 7 ha
Client: Foncière du Château Saint Léger
Architect: Baumschlager Eberle Architekten + SAME
Engineers: AIA
Djao-Rakitine Landscape: Irene Djao-Rakitine, Amélia Chevée, Aska Doi, Paul McGoldrick, Veronica Torretti, Marie Nogrette
The landscape garden of Château Saint-Léger, dates from the late 19th century, and included a pond, an artificial river and a Chinese pavilion that sat above a grotto in the garden. It was a romantic park, in the English style, composed of pathways meandering through glades and groves and leading to the castle. In the 2nd half of the 20th century, modernist buildings were superimposed with the intervention of architects Coulon and Prouvé. Much of the park was dismantled. This was followed by numerous built interventions as well as the creation of parking lots and paved roads that further diminished the strength of the park.
The landscape project we have developed restores consistency to the entire park and reveals, enhances and diversifies the woodland heritage now protected thanks to the status of listed woodland area ("Espace Boisé Classé"). The idea of a romantic and ecological park is introduced in order to find atmospheres and walks conducive to reflection, emotion, well-being and creation as well as the installation of increased biodiversity. Restore coherence to the 7 ha of park by introducing a continuous thread of paths linking a series of typologies of spaces corresponding to different atmospheres and uses within a reinforced woodland edge. The design of the park itself incorporates an open-air rainwater management system and, in general, tries and maximizes the porosity and permeability of the site, as well as it's biodiversity. Individual patios include plantings and water basins to cool the air and an attractive private space for users. The open-air water network includes swales along the circular pathway of the Glade as well as in the main carpark.
