Program: Memory Structure in Plural Public Spaces.
Surface: 25m²
Cost: 150 000 €
Client: LesAssociés
Beneficiaries: Visitors of the public spaces
Results: making public exhibition + memory place
Team: Budmo, LesAssociés, Wood&Co, Les compagnons du tour de France
Partners: Lamecol, Gascogne
Summer 2022.
30,000 hectares of forest burned.
46,000 people displaced.
16,000 firefighters from France and abroad mobilized.
Dozens upon dozens of people gathered in the villages to provide food and rest for the fire warriors. The wildfires in La Teste and Landiras struck two distinct territories: on one side, a public-use and state forest, non-productive, rich in biodiversity with centuries-old trees; on the other, a maritime pine monoculture, over 90% privately owned, intended for the paper industry and the wood-energy sector. Despite their differences, these two devastated forests raise the same question: the common good.
Work with the local resource. Revalue maritime pine as structural timber.
A place for both reflection and remembrance, the structure invites contemplation. Between light and shadow, photographs taken after the fires emerge, revealing the traces left by flames on this forest along the unique stretch of sand. The maritime pines, the forest’s main pillars, stand as witnesses, forming a vertical framework that recalls both the order of the woodland and the persistence of life. Through the gaps, the eye roams, light filters, and the sand emerges, hinting at the nearby dune. After this initial immersion, visitors are invited to continue their walk. Leaving the cabin, the ascent begins. Gradually, the vegetation thins, the wind picks up, and the horizon widens. Reaching the summit, the full landscape unfolds: a vast stretch of sand, the distant ocean, and behind, the blackened edge of the burned forest, now vanished. From this natural vantage point, the reading of the territory becomes clear: the scars of fire are visible, yet so too is the mosaic of environments—dune, forest, ocean—that together form this singular ecosystem.