Urban Challenge Trophies: Arcadis and its partners win the “Urban Recycling” prize with the Parc Bougainville project in Marseille

Building the city on the city is the ambition of the Parc Bougainville project, which aims to breathe new life into an industrial wasteland and a waterway, to make it a new place of freshness, relaxation and walking for the residents of the district.

Arcadis, an international engineering and consulting company, is pleased to announce that the Parc Bougainville project in Marseille, for which it is providing full project management alongside D'Ici-Là, is the winner of Défis Urbains in the "Urban Recycling" category.

Built on a former industrial wasteland in the 3rd arrondissement of Marseille in the heart of the Euroméditerranée perimeter, the project aims to renature an area of over 4 hectares dominated by concrete, to create a quality public space, responding to strong landscape, nature and biodiversity issues. It is indeed a question of creating a fertile space in place of a site abandoned by activities and a former pound; of rediscovering the reading of the Aygalades stream; and of imagining a park with a sustainable, virtuous and ambitious design with the inhabitants.

In total, there are 10.000 m² of plantations including 1.600 trees, 10.200 m² of lawn and meadow, and 250 m of renatured stream, which will contribute to the revegetation, renaturation and preservation of the natural environments of the site.

Its pivotal location between several urban renewal operations makes it a strategic facility eagerly awaited by users and residents of the northern districts of Marseille, but also by a wider Marseille public.

For Simon BAUDIER, Project Manager at Arcadis: "We are proud to contribute to this remarkable project, awarded an Urban Challenge Trophy, which highlights our commitment to the renaturation and reconversion of brownfield sites."

The park development work, which began in 2021, should be completed in 2027. The cost of the work amounts to €13 million, including €4 million for the renaturation of the watercourse.

The prize rewards the first phase of the Bougainville park (2,5 hectares out of the 4,7 hectares eventually). The second phase including the renaturation of the first sector of the Aygalades stream should start in 2025.

Each year, the Urban Challenges reward achievements (of public and/or private initiative) in favor of a sustainable, inclusive, accessible, shared, innovative, connected, balanced, comfortable and economical city. The winners of the 9th Urban Challenges were revealed on November 19, 2024 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris as part of the Urban Projects Forum.

Arcadis partners are:

Project owner: EPA Euroméditerranée
Project management: D'ICI LA (landscaper), Arcadis (VRD engineering, civil engineering, building), Biotec (ecological engineering), Agence 8'18" (lighting designer), Zakarian-Navelet (Architect), Adeus (sociologist), TPF Ingénierie (OPC), Techni'cité (landscape design office)