4.7.2012 – Issue 1 - After Crisis – Steinemann Ramias – Reviews, Studio, Videos

ECO VALLEE - A new city at the heart of the French Riviera

by Ramias Steinemann

Situated In the river Var valley, tangent to Nice and close to strong existing communications hubs, the city is conceived as central rather than peripheral or suburban, accommodating new spaces for the knowledge economy, services, and year-round and seasonal housing.

In the Var valley context, considerations of the environment, energy and sustainability are central. In pairs, the students will freely design projects that configure parts of the whole. The interaction of these parts will generate the overall outline. The project will be generated both from environmental parameters and by the relationship with the projects of the other students.
The projects will be mixed-use developments at the medium scale, with a predominance of housing.

Our task therefore has two fundamental aims:

1. To relate aspects of the environment and energy with the project,.

2. To relate the part with the whole. In our case, this means relating the architectural object with the new city. Here, the strength of the urban structure must be invented rather than repeated or celebrated, which is the usual case.