Coproduction leaders
The Lyon Part-Dieu project embraces an unusual work method: coproduction. All the public and private stakeholders are brought together to adopt a joint strategy and this is then implemented by AUC.
L’AUC
L’AUC, an architecture and urban planning office, directs the team in charge of Lyon Part-Dieu’s project design. This complex and ambitious urban project requires a wide range of expertise and specialisations. L’AUC (based in Paris and founded in 1996 by François Decoster, Djamel Klouche and Caroline Poulin) has all the design and construction management expertise required: urban planning and complex urban projects, architecture, landscaping, public space, sustainable development, different types of mobility, economic, commercial and cultural programming, design, graphic design, engineering and construction economics, planning space and infrastructures, advice on building and real estate project elaboration. L’AUC is also responsible for the project management of the public spaces.
This group designed the urban project and works alongside SPL Lyon Part-Dieu to ensure its satisfactory completion. It is divided into five centres, coordinated by five offices:
- Urban project: l’AUC
- Sustainable development: Eléments ingénieries
- Economics, programming, assembly: EPPC commerce
- Sustainable mobility: Citec
- Technical support: Egis
Here, the methods are different and the very specific positioning of the project means that we are dealing with a very powerful and highly motivating subject.
François Decoster,
Coproduction
One of the unusual features of the Lyon Part-Dieu project is that it works around the existing site, setting in motion a wide range of public and private developers, owners and district users’ projects. Taking this context into consideration, the project governance is built on a coproduction method that brings all the public and private stakeholders together, in which discussion and negotiation are the watchwords of a shared project dynamic that fine tunes the goals of the developers to the project’s ambitions.
From the outset, the Lyon Metropolis organised a think tank bringing together experts and a variety of professionals in the shape of workshops, before the AUC architects and urban planners drew up an urban reference plan [general development plan]. It approached all the challenges and development themes of a 21st-century city railway station district.
This joint approach is indicated in the reference plan, a document that specifies zone by zone details of the building project, (programming, functions, alignments, land, density, volumetrics, suitable building project tools, etc.) and on which the project concepts are based.
