The City of Nice, nestled between steep hills and the sea, lacks the space needed for large infrastructures. The project, shaped by this constraint, is situated in a residual space, jammed between a motorway, its slip roads and very large housing blocks.
Using complex geometry it overlaps the Tramway maintenance centre, a park-and-ride car park and the line’s terminus station.
The project deeply hollows out the slope, clears a space in its centre, letting in sun and air. Huge shafts of light come through at all levels, completing this plan.
The constructed spaces are directly shaped by the way in which the site flow operates, both from outside via the motorway and roads heading to the hills, and from the inside, through the movement of tramways, cars in the car park and pedestrians.
The movement is imprinted on the constructed space, staged and appointed as the generator of this part of the landscape.
It coils around the existing infrastructures and connect to the city and hills at successive levels. In doing so, it is in keeping with the existing public spaces, brings vitality to the district through the presence of shops and additional facilities, and creates spectacular views of the city, hills and sea.
Design Process
It was an error in the feasibility study, which we had to work from that triggered this utterly unusual design process. The initial landtake for this building project was too small for a maintenance centre!
So another plot had to be found, and the development had to be adjusted to the new site potential. The tram line, which stopped with this urban break, was continued to the foot of the housing blocks. The park-and-ride car park was located at the motorway exit on the roof of the maintenance centre and the control centre and its offices were relocated in the city centre. A socio-cultural centre will be set up on the roof terraces to make up for the lack of public facilities in the district.

Sustainable aspects of the work
The project has created a social dimension to our intervention. It has made this district denser essentially marked by the violence of the motorway network and connected all the housing blocks to the city, giving it new identity. The levels of noise pollution have been reduced by the masking effect of the building located on the edge of the motorway. The project is partly underground leaving open views from the housing. It has good thermal inertia reinforced by the planted roofs. The majority of the spaces are naturally ventilated. The façades of the control tower are either breathing walls, or protected by sunscreens. Part of the rainwater is absorbed by the green roofs or recovered for watering the city.

Conclusion
We were able to chose the building project site, draw up a new development and dramatically change our project intervention, which is no longer just a technical infrastructure, but an architectural, landscape, and urban project.