Synthesis

Redesign the squares and parks around the cathedral, as well as the tourist experience of Notre Dame. This will ensure that the island feels less dominated by tourists and will create spaces where Parisians and Tourists can integrate better, without either side overwhelming the other.

Provide the means for education about both historical architecture, and the processes of restoration and preservation. This is aimed at redefining how our society relates to and perceives historic architecture and the processes involved in keeping it standing. That through this education, we might better understand revered monuments, and appreciate them as more than historical objects

Through the development of my programme i began to understand how the separate elements of my project might be unified into a single scheme. Fundamentally my scheme has three parts. The Centre for Heritage and Preservation, The Crypt and Cathedral Museums in the basement, and the Cathedral itself. I developed the idea that they all be linked by a continuous circulation route for the general public, the spaces in each zone could then be arranged in relation to this route.

Quick diagrams

I produced large quantities of these quick sectional word diagrams, they were very useful for working out how the different spaces might relate to each other over the large site, and how best to connect different volumes.

My approach to minimise tourisms impact on the island and the cathedral, was to make their interaction with both my first priority, If this was well designed and organised, then the other requirements of the brief could fit around it. Instead of tourism overwhelming spaces never designed to cope with such large quantities of people. Thus i developed a route that would take tourists through a series of museums and exhibits underground, then up into the cathedral, then up onto a walkway to view the restoration and finally through the Centre for Heritage and Preservation