The Rives de l'Orne / Caen
Calvados, France
Centers under development
Opening : first semester, 2013
Including 28,000 sqm GLA
Customer catchment area: 494,000 inhabitants
A NEW WAY OF ENVISIONING SHOPPING AND LEISURE
The Rives de l’Orne project was designed by Apsys as a “new generation” project which enhances the pleasure in shopping and leisure, within a modern, open architecture that fits with the city’s identity, far from the constraints of the traditional shopping centre that is often equated with artificial lights, a monolithic design, closed spaces.
This exceptional project is the first step in a large-scale urban renewal programme launched by the City of Caen for the next 20 years.
REHABILITATING URBAN AREAS AND REJUVENATING THE CITY-CENTRE
The land that will welcome the Rives de l’Orne neighbourhood is at a strategic location, with easy access to all types of transportation. It will offer a seamless extension to the Caen city centre by improving the city’s retailing attractiveness with its terraces, restaurants, its multiplex cinema and retailing space.
A PROJECT THAT TAKES THE ENVIRONMENT TO HEART
The environmentally-friendly dimension of the project has played a crucial part throughout its elaboration. That is why the shopping centre will receive the BREEAM certification and the housing and office space will receive the High Environmental Quality (HQE®, Haute Qualité Environnementale) certification. Natural and eco-friendly materials have been selected for the buildings.
The project is also driven by an innovative approach based on certification for the retailing space and on the improvement in terms of energy consumption, in compliance with the high standards set by the HPE and THPE (High and Very High Energy Performance) labels.
What’s more, the parking lot was designed on one level so as to protect ground water. It will offer 925 parking spaces, around 700 of which will be open to the public.
The project’s architects
The project’s architecture, designed by Valode & Pistre, revolves around the concept of a complex in direct connection with its immediate surroundings through buildings shaped as ships’ prows facing the river, and a cube-shaped hotel, which will stand as a strong, ambitious architectural symbol for the neighbourhood and beyond, for the city as whole.
Between the Quai Hamelin along the river, the Cours Montalivet (high street) and the train station, a new neighbourhood will be created. An example in terms of environmentally-friendly architecture it will include 220 housing units, 83 of which are reserved for social housing. Each unit will meet BBC criteria. 70% of the housing units on offer have already been sold. The project also includes 25,000 sqm of office space, a 90-room three-star hotel, an underground car park with 800 places, and 28,700 sqm of retail space, around 55% of which have already been signed up for. The ambition of the Rives de l’Orne complex is to extend and redevelop a neighbourhood which is an entrance into the city, by offering a, multifunctional neighbourhood in its own right.
