The Corniche des Forts Park is set within a network of parks that stretches over a 3 km long hillside of the French plain, in the towns of Lilas, Romainville, Pantin and Noisy-le-Sec, in the East of Paris.
For safety reasons due to the presence of many underground galleries, this former gypsium quarry was closed to the public. Over the years, a lush vegetation colonised the site while urban pressure in the East of Paris caused massive densification with limited access to greenspaces. Reinvested by a resurgent nature, the site, referred to as “the forest” or “the jungle” by residents, has become the centre of all attention and the symbol of a pressing need for nature.
In this context, the project had to navigate between opening up the site and protecting it, both due to the risks caused by the underground galleries and to protect its rich and unique ecosystems. The technical imperatives were embraced and integrated at the core of the project’s concept.
The Corniche des Forts Park, inaugurated in May 2021, was thus transformed into a 25 hectares Nature-Park, balancing biodiversity protection and public accessibility, with:
– a 20-hectare non-accessible sanctuary for the existing vegetation, constituting an open-air laboratory for sterile soil recovery,
– surrounded by a 5-hectare promenade open to the public, bypassing the central forest, overlooking it, letting the ecosystem of the renatured quarry live, while highlighting it and providing leisure facilities to the community.
Strict environmental monitoring was carried out for the full duration of the project by an ecologist to ensure the design keeps clear from areas of floral and faunistic interests.
Forest clearance was limited to the bare minimum and to specific sectors, on the edges of sites of ecological importance, making the project develop around these nature sanctuaries. A new landscape structure was developed, alternating between open environments with grass, semi-open and closed environments with trees, to encourage a greater diversity of species within the Corniche des Forts.
The landscaping of the park creates 5 hectares of open space, with the observation ring occasionally growing to accommodate platforms for leisure and sporting activities on the edge of the protected area. These include leisure activities accessible to the public for everyday use (cycling, running…) but also sporting activities with light equipment (sport apparatus, playgrounds, a 26-metre-long outdoor climbing wall…), and resting areas. In the future, a pony club and a treetop adventure park may be added to the park.
Meanwhile, the park’s pathways are conducive to nature observation, raise public awareness on the issue of biodiversity in dense urban environment, with outdoor information panels and carefully crafted viewpoints.
To adapt to the existing fluctuating topography, a bespoke 124.70 metre long and 3 m large footbridge punctuates the walk and brings pedestrians closer to the forest as it stands 6,50 to 8,50 metres high. Observation huts are nested above the three pillars of the footbridge, as invitations for contemplation and discovery.
The project was nominated for the 39th Equerre d’Argent Prize 2021 under the Public Space and Landscaping category, together with Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille (winner, Kristell Filotico and Atelier Roberta), Parc des Ateliers in Arles (Bas Smets), Martin Luther King Park in Paris XVIIe (Osty & Associés and François Grether).
On this former 25-hectare wide unstable brownfield site, the municipality had to deal with a diversity of challenges, including securing this dangerous site from risks of collapsing, preserving the resurgent ecosystem, dealing with the community’s frustration caused by the inaccessibility of this large open space (and potential unsafe behaviours like intrusions), and the growing need for accessible green spaces in a dense urban area.
Due to the special nature of the subsoil and its many cavities, the site needed to be secured, and three aspects were taken into account:
– backfilling: to minimise the input of external materials causing disturbance and with regards to the circular economy, the goal was to use most of the backfilling materials from the site;
– retaining walls: to secure unstable mounds, with gabion retaining walls filled with stones, able to accommodate potential shocks coming from the underground cavities;
– rainwater management: to prevent water dripping into gypsium layers and causing soil to collapse, rainwater is collected through swales, pools, drainage of the retaining walls…
After 50 years of stress inflicted on this industrial site, the ecosystem will need time to heal. The project thus integrates flexibility as a core value, proposing spaces capable of welcoming, now and later, a variety of uses and activities, in constant evolution.
