A breach must be opened up through the former reservoirs of the castle fountains, to link the city living in its centuries-old street layout and the multimodal transfer point of the station.  A simple order will make it easier to maintain the coherence of the project over time, with different clients and in different stages.  Tree distinct architectural registers: "The passage", a major feature in stone, provides the monumental crossover point, "The wild garden" takes advantage of the natural conditions created by the abandonment of a wet environment, "The platforms" provide the artificial ground required for the new uses.

The different parts of the projects are designed on three architectural registers. These registers correspond to different ambiences, statuses, uses, materials and forms of light. This simple order will make it easier to manage the coherence of the project over time, with different clients and in different stages.
These three registers also make it possible to link this strategic part of the city to three great, cohabiting worlds: history (the palace), geography (nature, the land) and economics (metropolitan links, development, business, jobs)
Passage, rule, measure
The passage is the project's architectural motif. Clearly differentiated from the rest by its materials and geometry, this element marks the threshold. It is made entirely of stone (floors and walls), by contrast with the rest of the project. This architectural element provides a route from Avenue de Sceaux to the station.
From Place des Francine to Place de la ZAC, one moves from one world to another, from the world of the palace to the modern universe of transportation and the hyperurban.
This feeling of crossing over is reinforced by the perception of matter itself: the colour range of the pavement slabs shifts from ragstone on Place des Francine to the Comblanchien marble layers of the square: a material that is anchored in the soil, archaic and massive, changes to a more industrial, lighter and finer material.
Garden, nature, the wild
Versailles is a town of gardens, as the whole world recognizes. They are, of course, the ones created by Le Notre. What garden should go now in this pivotal and strategic location?
Garden design should reflect the practices and desires of its era. If we want to pass on an inheritance, we need to add today's to that of yesterday. But what is lacking here is not a place of total order and control, but the counterpoint of perfect 18th-century order, the almost wild presence of untamed nature, magnificent and abundant. The abandonment of the reservoirs already provides a marvellous world, full of birdsong and hundreds of species of plants. The project consists in making the existing site accessible, ordering it, protecting and maintaining it.
ZAC, stations, platforms and flows
The designated development area (ZAC) gives the town the opportunity for economic development on a site with very little available space. This goes along with urban intensity, a variety of activities, significant traffic flows, travellers in transit and public transport.  One way of achieving this could be to devise a whole new concept. However, the station exists, it too is remarkable – and moreover, a piece of heritage – and here again it is enough to add to and extend what exists.
So the operation consists in extending the 1930s world, emphasising the artificial floors, the parapets, the awnings. The ground is regular and neutral, made of concrete or bitumen, showing the texture of the gravel. The street furniture and unitary lampposts leave the ground as free as possible to give maximum space for people and movement.

Commissioned by: Town of Versailles
Program: Gobert Lakes automobile and bus crossing Gobert Lakes landscaping and development. Scenographic adjustments to the basin at the base of the square
Rebuilding of a garage for the SEVESC houses and of a terrace at the edge of the long basin
Area: 49,4 acres
Design and construction: Obras-town-planners, agent
BETURE - infrastructure engineers
EVP - structural engineers
AEI - Finance
Target Light - light engineers
BCEOM - hydraulic engineers
Competition: 2005
Study phase: 2006-2007 Construction: 2008
Cost: $9.7 million net of tax

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