The development of the Brossette site completes the transformation of the Boulevard Vincent-Gâche. It is the largest construction site ever completed on the island of Nantes. Occupied formerly by warehouses of a sanitary manufacturer, the 1.5-hectare plot facing the Loire, hosts six new buildings with mixed use, including a panoramic tower of 18 floors. The project, sitting at the crossroads of urbanism and architecture, offers a methodological alternative to the typical urban factory of ZAC, opposing the logic of prescriptions to that of dialogue and sharing. Polaris is the result of a work of designers gathered in the form of a group sharing the belief that architecture is at the service of the city. Workshop after workshop, the group negotiated each of the decisions at the scale of the building and that of the district.

As a continuation of the work of UAPS and Marcel Smeth (in charge of urban project management on the island of Nantes), LAN designed the masterplan and the major urban principles of the operation and acted as representative of the group composed of Abinal & Ropars and Atelier Stéphane Fernandez. The agencies worked together to adjust forms and programs with many goals: transforming high density into quality, defining a coherent public space and asserting a clear and legible urban identity.

The site is at the intersection of several formal systems: buildings dating from the 1970s condominiums based on the model of large housing projects or “estates,” an office complex, which was never entirely completed, with courtyards and gardens; and the intervention of Alexandre Chemetoff, architect of the first phase of urban renewal of the islands. In this heterogeneous context, a synthesis in which the new Polaris island plays a pivotal role has emerged. The layout of the buildings is based on a frame cut into strips, which crosses the parcel from one end to another and offers new paths to enhance the proximity of the heart of the site with the riverbank. Formed by the construction of buildings, interiorities emerge and are organised in squares, terraces or gardens, polarising the uses according to specific themes, in response to the needs of the public space.

Polaris hosts a campus of over 10,000 square meters in which the international school of hotel and tourism management Vatel has chosen to establish a new institution. It includes classrooms, a restaurant, a brasserie, and a pub open to the public, as well as a student residence with 300 apartments. The program also includes 250 housing units, nearly 6,500 square meters of office space and 600 square meters of activity spread between the different blocks of the operation. In addition to the alignment of floors from one building to another, and the regularity of the openings composing the facades; each common space – regardless of its position on the building site to which it belongs - reaches the same level of a distant and unobstructed view of the old city skyline.

Although the parcel is entirely private, all outdoor spaces are open to the city. The neighbourhood, which has become entirely pedestrian, is crossed by a central alley. It is the spine of the island and leads to the heart of the project: the forecourt, of the tower renamed "360°View", which was turned into a public square. Four huge poplars interact with the facade dressed in brushed aluminium.