Quartier Bordeaux-Brazza

  • Bordeaux-Bastide, France

    Location:

    Bordeaux-Bastide, France
  • 600,000 sqm

    Area:

    600,000 sqm
  • Currently Ongoing 2012-2030

    Status:

    Currently Ongoing 2012-2030
  • Type

    Urban Planning
  • Consulting Mechanical Engineer

    INGEROP
  • Built Area

    512,000 sqm
  • Client

    Bordeaux Métropole
  • Project Manager

    Mairie de Bordeaux
  • Consulting Electrical Engineer

    INGEROP
  • Consulting Landscape Architect

    Michel Desvigne

Brazza’s situation permits us to reflect on the openness and tolerance that a city today can engender through its protocols. A lack of flexibility does not invite one to linger - rather it is an obstacle to evolution.

In its present state, the Brazza-Nord area poses a fundamental challenge to the contemporary city. Its growth, its relationship to the landscape and the possibility it embodies, stimulate thinking about a kind of urban development that would encourage the evolution and cultivation of a real identity. We believe that working with the vectors of freedom makes for a powerful potential in urban planning. This approach leads toward urbanism that is liberal and worldly, that favors continuity, appropriation, activity and thus growth through the desires it arouses and permits. The future of a city derives from the opportunities it makes available to each and every citizen, from the privileged contacts it engenders and the invention of new uses that it stimulates. This is the condition required for the desire to live, to work, and to exchange to develop freely. This is a dream about building a society.

  • Plan
    Plan
  • Model
    Model
  • Model 2
    Model 2

Brazza-Nord’s growth, its relationship to the landscape and the possibility it embodies, stimulate thinking about a kind of urban development that would encourage the evolution and cultivation of a real identity.

We believe that contemporary urbanism should offer this flexibility and these possibilities. It must be agile and inventive to resist commoditization and homogenization. Urbanism should be applied to the interpretation and use of its own limits and to its ability to question the intelligence of its capacities. Boundaries need to be porous and borders must be opened, depending on needs and opportunities.

Publications

  • Selections Magazine - September 2016

    “Our design for Brazza allows for evolution,” says Elrouss. “It puts the human being in the centre of the city and is part of nature. It creates liberty.” More than that, Brazza will serve as a glorious example for all of France…” Read More
  • Domus - November 2015

    “…YTAA is reconstructing an extensive part of Bordeaux’ right bank by following the principles of reappraisal, reclamation and rehabilitation applied to a former industrial zone…” Read More
  • Executive Life - Summer 2015

    “A good project can’t be done without a good client. It’s always a dialogue”, Tohme says. “At the same time, there’s something interesting, which is that we know how to adapt ourselves, because we live in a society that’s always afraid of disappearing”. Read More
  • Beaux Arts - November 2014

    “Consider the public space as an area of constant transformation. Such is the belief of the architect Youssef Tohme and of the city of Bordeaux. This is the exhilarating essence of their future Brazza district.” Read More
  • Wallpaper - October 2014

    “Brazza revolves around two elements: the flexible volume and continuous landscape. Instead of a fixed number of square metres with a predefined programme, here you get a 5m tall volume plus the liberty to transform it.” Read More
  • Vivre Bordeaux & l’Aquitaine - Fall 2014

    “Society is changing, but the city is not changing at the same pace, so there are sometimes gaps. We cannot create our public spaces in the same way as they were in the last century.” Read More
  • Les Inrockuptibles - September 2014

    "The exchange between the individual and the collective creates public space." Society is changing and cities with it. For the architect and urban planner Youssef Tohme, curator of the Agora exhibtion 2014, the public space is "a frame that connects people." Read More
  • Libération - September 2014

    “Today, there is fertile ground for innovation. Amidst the post-war anarchy, we sought solutions with hasty reconstructions that were not appropriate. Now we must ask how this city really reflects us”. Read More
  • EK Magazine - August / September 2014

    “To be successful, a public space should create a link between the individual and their society; it’s a connection that can be extremely fragile in nature.” Read More
  • Le Monde - May 2014

    “By 2030, the area will also include affordable hotels, a library, a gym and two schools. At that time, the district will have nearly 4,500 housing units.” Read More
  • Sud Ouest - April 2014

    “Brazza invents tomorrow's housing. On the area of the former Soferti premises, a pilot scheme has been launched to build 'units capable'; homes that purchasers fit out as they please.” Read More
  • 20 minutes - April 2014

    "With some 8,000 people expected to live here, as a clear demonstration of Youssef Tohme’s determination to keep low the rise of the development, the project has only three buildings exceeding 40 meters." Read More
  • Sud Ouest - April 2014

    “On the right Bank, at the location of the new lift bridge, 53 hectares will be redeveloped in the coming years. For the new Brazza district, the plan was entrusted to the urbanist and architect Youssef Tohme.” Read More
  • Bordeaux Magazine - February 2014

    In line with the spirit of the future urban project in 2030, Tohme imagined "a Brazza that gives pride to the functional and social mix, with a strong identity: both true to its industrial past, and in this spirit is both free and intimate.” Read More
  • Sud Ouest - May 2013

    “An unreal, impressionist landscape. This place has an industrial history with a strong memory. We must exploit its existing and future potential for this area lays on the future focus of Bordeaux – the Garonne.” Read More
  • Sud Ouest - May 2013

    “The new district sits on an area I want respect. It will not be buildings that welcome visitors and residents, but instead the open landscape of the Garonne.” Read More