Plan ressources

Darwin is a green and creative economy hub that currently has 400 members from 140 organisations: start-ups in the co-working space and incubator, businesses that promote farm-to-fork systems, and associations for sport, arts and culture. This ecosystem is located on the right bank in Bordeaux, which historically was left by the wayside in the city’s development, but is now targeted by a highly active urban renewal policy. Over 50% of the area on the right bank is slated for a radical overhaul in the years to come. Darwin is located adjacent to the Bastide Niel mixed development zone.

A series of steps to appropriate the space made Darwin the thriving place it is today. The first step was to systematically inventory the built assets at Darwin by reviewing the “objects” one by one. We then sought to understand how these places had been appropriated by the multitude of actors present. We interviewed about 20 people, who told us about their work, their history and their perspective on Darwin, Caserne Niel and the urban initiative that will soon see it take on a new form.

Everything happens fast in the Darwin ecosystem – projects abound! We inventoried the ongoing projects in the communal areas and provided support to their creators in order to ensure that we would take a consistent approach to those spaces.

We set out on a project that went further than a studious cartographic analysis and the creation of a master plan. Where conventional urban planning practices require one to keep a distance from the subject, we took the opposite approach, delving deep into the Darwin ecosystem via an on-site architecture office. Being based in the Workshop enabled us to meet a variety of project stakeholders, survey the terrain daily, use mock-ups to show the process, hold events to share the outcome of the six-month study, and report the results to residents.