The establishment of a new tramway line along the southern part of Boulevard des Maréchaux constituted the point of departure for the broader rehabilitation and upgrading of the surrounding public spaces. We proposed to transform this bordering boulevard, running about nine kilometers long by fifty meters wide, into a large linear park connecting the heavily planted neighboring landscapes of Montsouris Park and the Cité Universitaire, traversed by the Bièvre valley.

The Haussmannian alignments already bestow upon the boulevard a majestic character. In order to complete the rigorous and structural plant configuration, we set up in the connecting spaces a garden stratum. This stratum explicitly differentiates itself from the grand alignments surrounding: here small-growth trees are planted at random, without geometrical order. This principle, adapted here to a contemporary vision, stems from a long Parisian tradition of similar plantings in areas bordering heavily frequented parks and squares, such as the Rond-point of the Champs Elysées, or the Garden of the Paris Observatory.

The garden stratum, superimposed over the system of existing gardens, accentuates their presence at the entrance into Paris, enhancing the porous nature of this space between the city and its suburbs. In a significant way, these new plantings contribute to an increase in biomass, completing and diversifying the plant volume provided by the tree alignments of the larger-scale urban development.