Emblematic of the contemporary situation prevalent in the outskirts of cities, the neighborhood surrounding the TGV (high-speed line) train station in Avignon is secluded between shopping centers and industrial areas. Old aerial photographs reveal to what point the landscape has been devastated. Formerly, a remarkable network of windbreaks were positioned in accordance with the strong Mistral winds and the meanderings of the rivers Durance and Rhône, describing both a history of agricultural mastery as well as the rivers’ ever-changing paths .

The neighborhood renovation project centering around the new TGV train station takes the history of the landscape as its starting point, but transforms its language through the introduction of different scales and different functions. Its current image is in no way a simple superimposition over the old network of hedges. The landscape language developed and put to the test in the “prototype” project that came beforehand, whose focus was the planning of the station itself, is here developed further and on a larger scale, coming to constitute the structure of the wider urban development zone (ZAC in France).

In terms of methodology, observing the surrounding landscape allowed for an understanding of the devices and mechanisms at work in its transformation, for an awareness of all the individual parts that make it up. Not only the outlines of the past, but a language is identified, a language transposed around the train station. In mastering this process, as the larger territory begins to take shape, a redefining of the landscape becomes possible.