« Constructing the site of Fonseranes’ 9 sluices allows sharing a history that started 350 years ago. The landscape design aims to create a dreamlike promenade. A single floor leads the step, a single material for all the equipment. Everything is done to make the site both a destination and a starting point towards the other treasures of the Midi canal and the urban area »
Philippe Deliau ALEP, landscape designer.
The project illuminates a trail close to 1 km long punctuated with about ten heritage sites, the wooden floating dock, the water coach house, the sluices, the pond, and the docks.
At night, visitors discover a series of nocturnal scenes that lead them along a magnificent view of the Béziers fortification in the background. The darkness of the site is necessary to glorify each illuminated element; it allows softness and subtlety. Therefore, lighting remains modest, not all the site is illuminated, and the work reveals itself in a sleepy landscape.
Lighting creates atmospheres where visitors can indulge in plays of shadows, colored light and reflections. With 450,000 visitors a year, Fonseranes has been equipped to become a night time destination, to enliven the site through events, to develop a new relationship to the landscape and offer a one of a kind experience to the public.