Ile de Nantes 2000–2010: a method for the meantime?

Abstract

In this critique of the Ile de Nantes, the authors consider design as a means of intervening in the ever-ongoing dynamics of a site and judge change of space instead of state of space. They base their critique on a transformation analysis and offer an interpretation of site and design through micronarratives, from which they develop an evaluation of the plan-guide. As an alternative to the master plan that aims at static ‘form’ according to an urban model, they argue that the plan-guide, as a journey-form, supports urban ‘trans-form-ation’ beyond predefined models. After judging the plan-guide as particularly apt to steer the Ile de Nantes’ first ten years of transition from old wharf to new city (the meantime), the authors point out some weaknesses that, if overcome, could enable the plan-guide to become a strategy for urban transformation based on an alternative framework.

• Urban transformation
• postindustrial landscape
• transformation analysis
• plan-guide
• journey-form

Notes

1 ′Radical increments’ is coined by Dana Cuff and roger sherman as a ‘design strategy that utilizes accumulation as a means of catalyzing change, while producing urban character and identity in the process’ (Cuff and Sherman 2011: 25).

2 The Bay City Project in Providence, ri, usA, by thurlow small Architects in collaboration with muchi east Architects (2008) and the Collage Avenue master Plan for rutgers university in new Brunswick, nJ, usA, by morphosis (2006), are two projects that rejected a fixed master plan by instating procedures that could respond to dynamic conditions (Thurlow Small 2008, Mayne 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Diedrich

Lisa Diedrich studied architecture and urbanism in Paris, Marseilles, and Stuttgart, science journalism in Berlin, and landscape architecture at the University of Copenhagen. From 1993 to 2000 she was an editor of Topos European Landscape Magazine, from 2000 to 2006 she worked at Munich’s public construction department. Since 2006 she has served as the editor-in-chief of the book series Landscape Architecture Europe and of 'scape – the international magazine for landscape architecture and urbanism. In 2007 she moved to academia, and since 2012 she has been a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Alnarp.

Caroline Dahl

Caroline Dahl was educated at the Blekinge Institute of Technology (Master of Spatial Planning) in Sweden, as well as at SCI-Arc, Southern California Institute of Architecture (Master of Architecture) in the United States. She has worked with urban planning and design for various public authorities, currently through her research-oriented design practice. Since 2014, she has been working on her PhD at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), focusing on urban transformation beyond the master plan. In addition, she manages the research platform FUSE (Future Urban Sustainable Environments) at SLU, and serves on the editorial board of the Swedish professional magazine STAD.