Rain water, a common link between a firemen cistern and a test garden to fight fire

The project proposes the construction and the supply of water of a cistern for firemen of 40 cubic metres working by harvesting the upstream water flow of the site thanks to “barradine system” (a kind of ditch constructed on the mountainside in a specific manner in order to collect the rainwater), and on the downstream section of the site by a streams spillway. 10 % of the annual rainwater (1344mL in 2014) should be drained in the tanks, which would be full in one semester. During the rest of the year, the collected water would be accumulated in the intermediary tanks, and then distributed on several mountainside terraces where different varieties would be tested. A forest shelter put on the cistern will welcome the hikers of the GR90 that goes from Lavandou to Notre-Dame-des-Anges.

A secular construction that brings us beyond the ordinary

This project creates a place that offers a possible silent mediation and a commemoration for these back-up soldiers who served France, but received until now a little part of the deserved recognition. The big gap between a purely functional building and a place for commemoration is done in a playful manner with a delicate wood construction. A sequence of simple pieces transmits, in a narrow space, spatial perceptions, which gives the soul the freedom of thought and answers almost fortuitously to the necessary technical requirements with simple planner means. The Harkis’ memory is indirectly put in place with an intervention that mixes integration to the landscape, spatiotemporal perception, and constructive formulation.

Create a fertile ground for an eroded firebreak

The ground of the intervention site is a ranker: a type of thin ground with a siliceous underground. The little amount of humus and mulch rests directly on the bedrock. The erosion of the firebreaks ground, void of any plants with deep roots, is blocked by the construction of restanques (a retaining wall made of dry stones). A complete fertile ground is recreated with first, reactive mineral substances, which would come from sediments and any other thin dirt accumulated in the decantation tanks of the cistern or deposited on the terraces during the summer irrigation, and then humic substances that will come from the weeding and the pruning of the mountain’s firetrails. Mineral and organic substances will intermingle to create the clayhumic complex: the basis of the ground’s fertility.