Historically a military town, nowadays Calais is a seaside bathing destination. The Calaisis is a region rich in tradition, landscape and history.

Today, the seaside neighbourhood is being revived; it is undergoing an image transformation. Our approach is based around the renovation of the peninsula; opening and irrigating the area and reconnecting calaisien public spaces in a chain. The project articulates itself around four ways that we experience life in public space at the seafront: we move, we contemplate, we play and we discover.

The scheme increases the influence and the use of the promenade and encourages the public to contemplate the site. There are themed pathways; certain pedestrian routes are dedicated to pause and to contemplation with specific furniture whilst other pathways are dedicated principally to mobility and discovery (they have a more cinematic relationship to the space which is enhanced by the sequencing of activities.) These pathways make up the skeleton which facilitates mobility along the seafront with nuggets of program along the promenade including a belvedere and atypical artistic objects. There are poles of intensity with program linked to play and urban sports, but also to polyvalent, multi seasonal places. Finally, the installation of a dune park, englobing these programmatic layers creates a rich and diverse edge. The buildings are brought together through a landscape which is teaming with zest for life.

Project Data

Landscape Architecture: BASE Landscape Architects
Other designers involved in the design of landscape: Ingerop + ON + Face B + Connexions sport urbain
Project Location: Great beach of Calais in France
Design year: 2017
Year Built: 2021
Photography: ©Philippe Turpin and ©Fred Collier-Ville de Calais