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USUS architects & Zébra3 - Bivouac areas - 2018

Sketch & APS - Regional Natural Park of Millevaches in Limousin

The association of the Natural Parks of the Massif Central (IPAMAC) is leading alongside the PNR Livradois-Forez, the PNR of Millevaches in Limousin and the International Center for Art and Landscape (CIAP) of the Island of Vassivière, an experiment to design ecological bivouac areas. The objective is to make up for the lack of accommodation, particularly on the major routes of the Massif Central, and to offer an original and attractive accommodation offer. This model of bivouac areas can be offered to project owners who wish to deploy it on the Massif Central.

In addition to this, you need to know more about it.

Zébra3 and USUS architects have jointly imagined a modular architectural project, augmented by an artistic proposal.

The proposal takes the form of a three-dimensional wooden structure integrating many furniture elements (seats, tables, storage, screens, basins, fireplace, etc.) This furniture frame shelters the various uses of the bivouac under a large roof. Its modular principle makes it possible to lengthen, compact, or even fragment the bivouac area depending on the situation.

In addition to this, you need to know more about it.

The work of Marcelle Delpastre, narrative thread of a magical path

At the same time poet, ethnologist, storyteller, farmer and above all inhabitant of Limousin, Marcelle Delpastre is a prominent figure of this territory.
She has compiled the tales and legends of her region, by searching deep in her memory for the stories that rocked her youth, and by collecting memories from her neighbors and acquaintances. His writings are intimately linked to the history of the stage, and open to the evocation of the fantastic and the universal.
It is from this double relationship that the artistic approach of the bivouac areas is articulated, oscillating between earth and cosmos, between humanity and universality.

Each of the routes is punctuated by the presence of a text extracted from his work, hidden on its route, geolocatable and referenced on Geocaching.com. Thus the hiking path between each area can become the support of an adventure to discover the stories of Marcelle Delpastre.


Eventually, the route marked out by "geocaches" could be increased by commissions from guest artists or crossing the plateau, modest interventions to be discovered on the routes.


Selected extracts from texts evoke a bestiary from which each of the bivouac areas is named (the wolf, the cricket, the white heron, the toad, the wren, the lion). A weather vane in the image of each of these animals characterizes each area.


The routes linking the bivouac areas to each other constitute an imaginary constellation compared to the southern and northern sky map.
On each Bivouac area, the water point and the fireplace are subjected to a plastic treatment based on the representation of the maps of the Southern sky for water, boreal for fire. Invitation to the observation of the starry sky, evocation of the phantasmal half of the universe, the sky and the stars, lead all travelers to wonder about their own measure in the face of the vastness of the cosmos. At the bottom of the water points, the southern sky map shows a new constellation taking up the route of the hiking route on which a point marked by a garnet stone symbolizes the situation of the bivouac area.

In addition to this, you need to know more about it.

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