Public square
The Pont-De-Buis project aims to harmoniously combine shops, a public square, a market hall, and a train stop. Faced with an enclosed and hard-to-read site, and a town seeking a central hub, the challenge is twofold: to reveal the site’s potential at the scale of the village while creating a functional asset for the community.
The decision to retain the train station pavilion creates a dialogue between the new hall and the town’s history. The central hall is positioned as a new landmark: a simple, circular, iconic form designed to establish a new focal point. Its efficient architecture, braced by the surrounding buildings, allows for diverse uses. A micro-perforated curtain, inspired by agricultural tarps and folded into a technical shaft, protects users from wind and rain while preserving light and transparent views.
At the heart of the project, a landscaped patio concentrates natural light, manages rainwater, and enhances the landscape quality, serving both symbolic and functional purposes. The sloping mono-pitched roof ensures coverage suitable for various uses, particularly for merchants located around the perimeter with their trucks.
The project also reflects a desire to integrate into the town’s urban fabric: shops occupy the existing buildings, while the elevated former station houses a new panoramic cultural space that will mark the starting point of the local hiking trail.
Through this approach, which seeks a subtle balance between sensitive and pragmatic architecture, the project redefines Pont-de-Buis’s public square by offering a new living space, deeply rooted in its territory.
