Shopping district

The shopping centre planned to occupy the vicinity of Saint-Geours-de-Marenne’s N10 road playfully acts as a small scale business district where horizontality acts as a common vector. It was decided that it would ressemble a field of standing stones erected in « totems » in a clearing surrounded by pine trees. The enclosure is therefore sporadically dotted by the vertical totem-like units which all together absorb the energy of the human exchanges and activities.
The outlined area provides a series of new scenarios, thus staging a contemporary shopping experience where consumer habits meet values such as delight and eco-friendliness.
The luminous lines drawn by the business signs incorporated into the peripheral elevations kinetically help locate and identify the shopping centre. The sloped roofs have the shops open onto the centre of the area and highlight the vertical identity of the buildings.

The main pedestrian entrance faces west and leads to a sheltered central piazza to the east. The latter accomodates ephemeral stalls and events. An internal loop around a pine tree garden provides cafés and restaurants to the wandering diners.
At the heart of a second block, a Sports Village houses the central space : an open plan layout of sports and leisure items, shops and translucent boxes all neatly scattered underneath the canopy.
The garden which extends beyond the block induces outdoor activities : material testings, trials, demonstartions…

Nature surrounds the project and is used as a shield, a filter which generates positive waves of energy. The memory of the original sylvicultural space is incorporated into the elevations’ design. The totems vertical figure reflects the graphic aspect of the surrounding pine trees. The single-sloped roofs also work with the green volume of the canopy.