Partner search Innovative approaches for the spatial design of neighbourhoods

Since 2017, the City of Caen and its partners have been engaged in an urban renewal program for the Chemin Vert neighbourhood, located in the northwest of the city. The Chemin Vert district is one of Caen’s largest neighbourhoods. It lies between the ring road to the north, the urban ensembles of the Reconstruction era to the south, and mixed housing estates to the east and west. In 2029, the district will be served by the new streetcar line, which will link the project site directly to downtown Caen in 15 minutes. Today, the Chemin Vert district is facing persistent dysfunctions: aging housing, a stagnant housing offer, social housing isolation, and commercial fragility.
Public players have expressed their ambition to strengthen this deteriorated social link, revitalize the district and improve the supply of new and existing housing, with a focus on the Jacquard-Molière sector. The challenges facing this sector, which includes the site of the former Jacquard secondary school, a shopping mall, housing and facilities,
are to create a new centrality by opening up the area, building on the existing commercial appeal, developing a new housing offer that will guarantee the mobility of the social housing stock, rethinking the restructuring of public facilities around the site and creating a new streetcar line that will link the district to the city center.
The challenge is to recreate a centrality at the heart of the urban and landscape fabric of the Chemin Vert district by openly articulating the multiplicity of programs on the project site (tramway, shops, housing, public services, park) through the prism of social links, conviviality and intergenerational mix.

The specific subtheme in which Jacquart-Molière site is engaged, “resourcing from social dynamics – promoting open neighbourhoods” matches harmoniously with the scope of the topic of New European Bauhaus facility : Innovative approaches for the spatial design of neighbourhoods (HORIZON-NEB-2026-01-PARTICIPATION-02).