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Location
The steeply sloping Tarterêts neighborhood forms an irregular lozenge shape over an area of some 100 hectares, with very clear boundaries: the main roads RN7 to the west and RN104 ‘Francilienne’ to the north, and the railway tracks to the east. The five existing routes into the neighborhood are not easily identifiable, generally fairly discreet.
History
The Tarterêts area was first settled 23,000 years ago by a population of hunter-gatherers, as evidenced by the presence of three archeological sites. Since the Middle Ages, Corbeil has felt the benefits of its location on the Seine and its agricultural plains, serving the needs of neighboring Paris. At the end of the 19th century, clay extraction was developed, with the installation of brickworks, followed by roof-tile factories. The largest of these was Gilardoni, who invented the interlocking tile at the beginning of the 20th century. By that time, Bas-Tarterêts was an area of suburban housing.
From the 1960s, the neighborhood was developed with tower blocks in response to the demand for housing at that time. Architect Roland Dubrulle, assisted by his son Richard and by J. Mougenot and Solvet, and Jean-Pierre Jouve, was commissioned to design the development. The first phase of 369 social housing units was completed in 1963. Construction continued over the next 10 years, finally completing 2,300 homes. By the mid 1970s, Les Tarterêts was home to nearly 10,000 residents, a quarter of the population of Corbeil-Essonnes.
During the 1980s, social diversity declined. In light of economic crises and social difficulties, Les Tarterêts was classified as a Grand Projet de Ville area for urban, social and economic regeneration. A programme of urban regeneration was launched in 2004.

Map showing the location of the neighborhood

Map showing the location of the neighborhood
Orientations
The reconfiguration of the Tarterêts neighborhood is a continuation of the initial ANRU programme. The aim of the project is to diversify and improve the quality of the housing stock. This is to be achieved by demolishing high-rise buildings, which are part of the stigma attached to the neighborhood and no longer meet the aspirations of today’s population. The construction of a substantial supply of around 1,000 varied, high-quality new homes will provide new opportunities for people to move within the neighborhood, thereby fostering social diversity.
With regards the roads network, the main thing is to anticipate the long-term adaptability of the urban grid by establishing logical and organized property holdings and facilitating access and service for public facilities (sports halls, schools). This work goes hand in hand with the redevelopment of Corbeil RER station as a multimodal transport interchange, and the development of the T Zen 4 bus route.
The new project for urban regeneration (NPNRU) also plans to better meet residents’ needs in terms of local services, with the construction of a new sports hall, the refurbishment of a community centre, the extension of certain schools, and the creation of a multi-disciplinary cultural facility in the old boiler house.
The project also aims to contribute to, preserve and enhance the neighborhood’s landscaping and environmental qualities with new developments, in order, among other things, to create welcoming cooling islands.
It should be noted that the community consultation was one of the major drivers in establishing the programme of the operation, placing the involvement of local residents at the heart of the project. This approach is accompanied by the coordination of a network of local stakeholders, via the Gestion Urbaine de Proximité Sociale (GUPS) scheme for improving the way a neighborhood is managed.
Progress report
The Tarterêts neighborhood was substantially restructured by the urban regeneration project launched in 2004. The central block containing the shopping centre and car parks was replaced by the Aimé-Césaire Park. Thirteen towers were demolished, freeing up 6 hectares of land, and 662 homes were renovated. New buildings rehoused families and provided more property available for purchase. All the public facilities were renovated (schools, community centre, health centre) and a new shopping centre was built.
The new project for urban renewal picks up where this earlier project left off. With regards housing, the project aims to create a range of around 1,015 homes, providing a greater variety of opportunities for people to move within the neighborhood. Part of this provision comes with the creation of a new garden city in the north-west of the neighborhood. The renovation of the existing park also needs to be pursued. A reflection on active ground-floors is ongoing, in order to develop new services. The centre of the neighborhood will be reorganized with the redevelopment of the market square in the visual axis of the boiler house, the redesigned car park and market square, and the design of a new city block for construction.
The project site
Designed by Jean-Pierre Jouve and Roland Dubrulle, the 1,280m2 boiler house is circular in plan, 50m in diameter, with the north-east segment open. A large concrete chimney, 36m high, rises from the centre of the building. Five thin, 11cm-thick concrete shells, fan out from this central point like the petals of a daisy. Sited on a 5,500m2 plot of steeply sloping land, the boiler house is arranged on two levels.
Supplying the surrounding urban developments, the boiler house underwent an initial mutation in 1994, conversing from oil to gas. The boiler house ceased activity in 2013.
Initial ideas for programming
The centerpiece of the neighborhood’s redevelopment, the refurbished boiler house is to form the heart of one of the town’s primary focal points. The aim is to create a place for gathering and entertaining, a facility for appropriation by the community for the future of the town and its quality of everyday life. The town wants to create a cultural facility founded on dialogue and interaction between heritage and artistic creation. As a result, the project must combine the original identity of the boiler house itself and the history of the neighborhood and recent archeological findings, with the accommodation of innovative artistic forms and practices, as well as training and educational activities for the general public.
At the same time, it is import to develop local services for the residents, focusing on public reading and artistic and cultural activities. In conjunction with the neighboring community centre, the boiler house will be used as a venue for receptions, residences, research, work spaces and experimentation for artists, researchers, trainers and teachers, etc.
The ambitions of the project
The primary ambition of this project is to fulfil a desire to live “together” better and to recreate a common space. Following the 2014 fire in the multi-media library, the need was expressed during consultations and dialogues with the community for a quiet place, open to all. In light of this, the conversion of the boiler house into a cultural facility is thereby a local project, of which one of the objectives is to collectively reinvent Corbeil as a unified, open, welcoming and creative town. The boiler house project must thereby reflect the cultural, educational and social needs of the inhabitants of Tarterêts and the wider town, while also providing a real attraction for the wider area.
In addition, the local authorities want to demonstrate a clear environmental ambition in the renovation of this work of 20th-century architectural heritage, and the redesign of its surrounding public space. The renovation techniques to be used for this unique asset must target economy of means, and as such will be the subject of experimentation, but could also set the example and become a reference. The redevelopment of the external spaces and the handling of the topography must make it possible to establish links between the building and the public spaces in the centre of the neighborhood, but also to improve the landscaping of the site by creating a garden, a cooling island as the active principle of a bioclimatic approach. This ambition is fully in keeping with the Ecoquartier approach upheld in the new Tarterêts project for urban regeneration.
Aerial photo of the boiler house, with its garden and the community centre

Photo of the boiler house, 1978

Photo taken inside the boiler house

Photo taken inside the boiler house
• How do we construct the cultural, social and educational programme for a venue with widespread appeal at the centre of a disadvantaged neighborhood?
• How can an iconic piece of 20th-century heritage be redeveloped for new uses?
• How can this project constitute a means of encouraging residents to appropriate the neighborhood, and of increasing the appeal of the area (at the scales of the neighborhood, town, conurbation and region)?
• What restoration techniques and which materials should be used to meet the today’s requirements of economy, while preserving the historic identity of the monument and a harmony with the prestressed concrete structure? How can this operation be made a model for replication?
• How can targets for developing biodiversity in a restricted and central urban site be incorporated?
• How can dialogue between a historic monument and its surroundings be developed, and how can the historic monument be enhanced by landscaping?