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Architects: Atelier 9.81
- Area: 150 m²
- Year: 2010
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Photographs:Julien Lanoo
Text description provided by the architects. Downtown Tourcoing is currently at the heart of an extensive restructuring, launched a few years ago. All public spaces, streets and squares are being fully renovated, and a large shopping mall with movie theaters will be inaugurated soon. As part of this project, the Metro, tram and bus station come together to offer a true multimodal system.
The project of a covered pedestrian crossing for downtown Tourcoing is born of this new direct relationship between transportation modes (with the bus station on one side and the trams and subway on of the other), between the Place du Doctor Roux and the Place Charles et Albert Roussel.
The pedestrian crossing will fit into a row of townhouses of the same style, taking the place of one of them. By breaking thus with the alignment, the pedestrian crossing asserts itself visually, with the orange-red hues used on the open gables and by the constitution of a retro glassed facade, lit up at night.
Stepping into the void thus constituted, the project consists in erecting a canopy representing an urban origami; Fine sheet of graphic Alucobond, a support for the signage designed with this project in mind. Spread out over a 20-meter-long, 4.5-meter-wide area, this sheet reveals numerous complex folds and height variations, from which it derives its uniqueness.
The covering ends in a notable slope, signaling the pedestrian crossing from the Tram terminus and the entrance to the shopping mall and Metro. The crossing’s floor is made of gray granite pavement, an extension of the planned layout for all downtown public spaces.
Text provided by Atelier 9.81
