The Bottière Chênaie
neighborhood displays its relationship to the territory by its integration into
a geological history and its rendition of market gardening. The park
strengthens the new link between the neighborhoods, accompanies the new
boulevard, following and balancing the new densities of its predominantly
indigenous vegetation, and expresses a certain idea of nature. The reopening of
the stream enhances the place that finds, in this small geography, a direction
and a centrality. The entire neighborhood orients itself towards it. Alleys
descend the slopes to the stream, children travel through the fords,
passageways span the pontoons where visitors profit from this newly revealed
water.
Water and nature, however, are not just
found at the park and the stream of the Gohards but are expressed in the dense
urban space, and are integrated into the vegetable gardens. This sharing of the
public space demonstrates the compatibility between urban density and urban
nature. The collection of rainwater coming from the built-up city blocks is
done in cultivated ditches. Creating cool areas in the city, this rainwater is
essentially expressed through the vegetation of white willows and reeds that
occupy half of the new shared thoroughfares.
There are many traces of the systems that
have been employed on the site in the past; among them some reservoirs,
connected to wells, still remain and contribute to the identity of the place.
Besides their conservation, and the restoration of a few of these reservoirs,
wind power permits them to renew the supply of water for future shared gardens
and the park. This rainwater feeds thewading pond of the central square and, in
the southern part of the park, two new ponds transcribe the dictates of the
Water Act in an aesthetic space and give the area a high-quality use of water.