#LaureBordetDurieu

[ega-talks]

Laure Bordet Durieu, Planning with nature

Laure Bordet Durieu is a multi local french landscape architect graduated from Lullier in Geneva Switzerland. She grew up in New Caledonia in the Pacific and is living and working on Martinique in the French West Indies.

FILMED IN MALMÖ, SWEDEN 2018

EGA-TALKS is produced by Erik Giudice Architects: interviews with experts in the field of architecture, urbanism and related areas. EGA Talks is part of EGAs ongoing cross disciplinary research aiming to envision a sustainable future

Planning with nature

My experience includes walkable and bikable coastal planning. The coastal line is a landscape with salt, water and winds. I work with it by watching it a lot. The site always has the answer. If you watch a beach for an example, you’ll see how the sand moves with the waves. What size of rocks can be moved by the sea and how the movement and formation of the sand is impacted in relation to what you put in the sand.

If you want to keep trees on the beach, you’ll need to make the sand move into the right kinds of formations, this can be done with very simple measurements and it’s interesting to see how nature in this way is ”creating itself” Putting benches through the ground for an example can catch the sand as it is coming back with the large swell waves towards the sea. This collected sand can in turn protect a planted tree.

I think we have forgotten a way of planning where we respect nature and the given conditions. I think we have to be humble and use material and plants from the site. Because they preserve and strengthen the identity of the site. So, does the volumetric relations of a place and the way of living there. This together is the identity of the ”terroir” and the place.

In my projects I try to use the plants from the site. Some are endemic (unique to the site), some are autochthonous (indigenous plants) and some have come from other places, but they can all support salt and wind. This makes them more sustainable because you don’t have to water them, you don’t have to cut them and you don’t have to fight against them. They support every condition on the site.

When we plan a part of a town or area, then we plan a piece of landscape. A good answer of how to plan is to be humble. We don’t need to change the landscape just because it’s possible. I think we just have to manage it. To make it invisible 10 years after our intervention.

In the French west indies, the climate is hot and everything is growing very fast. The following thing after planning is then the maintenance. Here you are often forced to work with nature, because you don’t want to fight nature.

I also care for pieces of coastal landscapes where mangrove are being respected and protected. I want to give the young generation understanding of coastal forests.

So, I am now making a mangrove rehabilitation together with children. With a simple idea that I proposed: - One tree with one child - One tree per day - For 3,5 years

Making everyone feel involved.