Project management: Ville de La Verrière / Clément Willemin – base + ATEVE
La Verrière / Yvelines / 1,3 M€ / 12 000 m² / 2018
Photographs : Karolina Samborska

Le Bois de l’étang is a residential area located in La Verrière, near the city of Trappes. It has strong constraints such as the presence of high-voltage lines, a strong dominance of social housing, and a male over-representation in the public space, but also the presence of a vast wooded natural area and the pond of Noës at the border of the district that makes all the interest of this privileged site. The project, delivered in 2018, consisted in reorganizing the uses of public space, proposing new leasure activities for the inhabitants. It is a delicate organization of uses and potential nuisance, made of sports routes, sports areas, playgrounds, and barbecue areas. This project was the subject of an informal but effective consultation with the inhabitants in the form of a simple negotiation on site with, on the one hand, the « heads of districts », fathers and big brothers, and on the other hand the inhabitants and mothers of families. The program was done by hand on a paper site plan, and both designers and inhabitants had the intelligence to review their preconceived ideas in order to create a quality project acclaimed by all, while staying true to the cultural specificities of the neighborhood.