The Integration in the Adjacent Urban Sectors and Economic Development of the Lorient Submarine Base Facilities in France

摘要

The issue of the conversion of military facilities and in particular of such special purpose submarine bases to more peaceful and environmental friendly uses is a challenge for our modern times. In this paper through the examination of the Lorient submarine base facilities we examine some of the issues that challenged an expert team of internationally renowned architects, specialists of urbanism of the environment and representatives of the local community in agreeing and expressing the type of urban integration they envisioned and in defining the type of economic development which they envisioned for the future of the former military facilities and of the region in general. Pictures of the existing situation are presented together with the reasons that led the French Ministry of Defence and the local elected officials to seek expert advice. We examine the evaluation process and criteria which were used to evaluate and select the wining proposal. The description obtained from the wining architect's team illustrates their architectural drawings for the retained solution. Many things remain to be done and more research is needed in this sector, as military technical requirements make these existing bases inadequate for future missions and changing economic constraints force more bases around the world to be converted for non-military activities, this urban success is a good indicator of some of the issues and challenges one may encounter on comparable projects.