Plage des Trois Bassins
Saint - Nazaire
The “Plage des Trois Bassins” project focuses on the redevelopment of a forgotten beach in the neighbourhood “Le Petit Maroc”. While most typical beaches are long-stretched landscapes overlooking the ocean, this beach is rather narrow, situated inside the estuary of the Loire river and provides views to the other side of the estuary. The historical pier protects the beach from the forces of nature and provides a calm and cosy feeling. In order to fully extract the possibilities of this beach a new typology is needed. Our projects attempts to develop such a new typology by introducing a terraced structure made with prefabricated retaining walls. These terraces provide a framework for the rest of the intervention which consists of in-situ cast concrete walls on top of the retaining walls. Cast using timber formwork, these walls have an interesting texture which promotes the deposition of algae in order to accentuate the relationship with the water and the sea. The entire design goes into dialogue with the tides, creating pools when the tide goes out and almost completely disappearing when the water is at it’s highest. Because of this various places are created, each with it’s own use and atmosphere.
– Brent Vanheyst, Alexander Verlaak
4
5
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more” — Lord Byron
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19