"Île d’Yeu, light and retreat in the high sea:
An insular journey as a tool for recovery"
In a society in perpetual acceleration, the new possibilities offered to mankind are constantly increasing, generating the feeling that we no longer have time to do anything: Man feels subjected and stressed by the pressure of time, leading to the development of modern pathologies, such as burn-out.
The island of Yeu, because of its insularity, seems to resist this frantic rhythm and contrasts with the mainland. The island itself is in search of its identity after the fishing crisis and the disappearance of its core activity, so the challenge is to give a new meaning to several places that are now disused.
The programme, defining insularity as a tool for reconstruction, aims to reconnect people from the mainland suffering from burn-out to a more natural and healthy rhythm of life and work. The project consists of a series of interventions, divided into five acts: awareness, confrontation, encounter, interaction and fulfilment.
Three sites were then identified, both for their contexts and specificities in responding to the expectations of the cure, but also for their significance on the island: they themselves seem to be in burn-out. By revealing a historical axis from the Port de la Meule to the Port Joinville, the cliff, the maritime laboratory and the fishing factory are reinvested, shaping a new identity for these now abandoned places. These architectures catalyse new forms of daily interaction between the inhabitants of the island and the people from the mainland.
Team: 2 architects
How to reveal the fishing industrial landmarks from the last century of an island to help rebuild a small community?
The journey continues from the beach to the harbour. A place that contrasts with our first stop at the picturesque harbour of La Meule. Located in the rocky bay of the Tourette where the commercial harbour has been developed, the factory is a strong symbol of the history of the island, of its heritage and its know-how. The factory district has long been a source of vitality for the inhabitants who have happy memories of this prosperous economic period. Its distance from the mainland made it a strategic fishing ground for sardines, recognised throughout Europe. Indeed, five factories were set up there but only the Bouvais-Flon factory remains today, under the name of SPAY. Its characteristic facade is in line with the white houses, but it is its 24-metre high chimney that still marks this harbour panorama.
The final stage of our journey, the factory, with its location, its popularity with the inhabitants of the island and its history, leads us to create a place where the inhabitants can meet and communicate their specific culture to the patients. It is around a semantic work on this site that the project develops: the meeting between a popular energy which was consumed after the crisis of fishing and the patients who were individually victims of this implosion. From these observations, two scales of intervention emerged: a requalification on the scale of the harbour, then on the scale of the building.
These new work spaces, in which particular attention is paid to the rhythm and well-being of the worker, symbolise the voluntary recovery of the curist in a regular and healthy dynamic, to do work together and reintroduce the strength of the gesture.
