The new Marseille is being built by reclaiming residual sites abandoned around the centre of the metropolis.

The Phare block sits at heart of the city: between the commercial and old ports, Saint-Charles station, Belle de Mai and the districts of Bougainville-Les Crottes and the Cabucelle. The site is an extension of the city centre – part of a seam between the northern and central districts – and a new central location in the making, encompassing a former industrial site and promontory that dominated the port and surrounding views of the ocean. The result is the creation of a site with a compounded urban identity, adapted to new lifestyles and uses and linked to the geographical and climatic conditions of the Mediterranean cities.

Marseille is part of an alluvial plain surrounded by a crown of hills whose slow erosion has slowly stratified the soil and the natural environment of the city, giving it its Mediterranean identity and unique charm. The Ilot Phare is an allegory of this geology. The Northwest wall of the island rises like a mountain, facing the mistral and the spray of the sea, then slowly descends to the south into numerous gentle facades and terraces. The latter form plateaus and spaces for living, sheltered from the wind and orientated to the southern sun. Such structures create sanctuaries: sunny, preserved and fertile, the heart of an island dedicated to collective life in its gardens and terraces. The project creates the conditions for a new Mediterranean way of life: an osmosis between mineral and vegetable, inside and outside, geology and architecture.

The objective sought is no less than the creation of a habitat reconciling urban, social and climatic issues in the service of sustainable development. Each building on the site is a link in this rocky chain, contributing to the creation of a new urban fabric.