In order to expand the small size of its territory, the Principality of Monaco launched a new urbanization project at sea with the creation of a neighborhood on a six hectare peninsula. Due to the utmost specificity of a totally artificial context onto which a landscape environment that wishes to remain natural is to be constructed, the use of very specific techniques and engineering becomes necessary.

The Anse du Portier project is largely determined by natural geography. It appears as a sort of replica of the natural reliefs in the landscape. This extension offshore is characterized by many of the same physical dimensions and continuities that belong to certain natural peninsulas, which allow it to be viewed as a “landscape unity” in itself. Going beyond the formal metaphor, we installed a continuous and abundant layer of fertile soil throughout, despite the extraordinary complexity of the built infrastructure.

Installing a foundational substratum on the scale of an entire natural landscape is a major challenge. The vegetation is arranged according to soil, the different depths required, the slopes. A coherent rationale is established between the artificial topography of the ground, the soil used to create it, and the plant forms. This plant universe evokes the Mediterranean landscape endemic to Monaco and its surroundings. Mediterranean flora is essential. In this region reputed for its exotic gardens, this choice stands out as unique and contemporary: giving priority to evoking the landscape and nature surrounding, rather than to fabricating an exotic setting as in the 19^th Century.

While the Anse du Portier landscape has a strong naturalist planted element, it also boasts a significant composition of public spaces: quays, squares, terraced steps, streets, and promenades follow one upon another forming a monolithic plinth. The mineral surfaces are all treated with the same material, the limestone characteristic of Monaco's public spaces.

The project extending into the sea, and more particularly the landscape project upon it, are part of an overall development that will span many years. Taking advantage of the time it will take to realize these projects, we can cultivate and prepare with care the vegetation that will not be planted within them until the last years of construction. In the meantime, the plants to be used are grown at a cultivation site, principally the large scale trees like the Aleppo pines and the stone pines.

This offsite production makes it possible to raise the plants under suitable environmental conditions, guaranteeing an already established vegetation for the future site, with trees about due to reach their maturity when the time comes for them to be planted. But unlike the generalized approach of a tree nursery, this production follows a precise aesthetic aim, specific to the project. This prefabrication of the landscape is ensured through meticulous monitoring, careful maintenance, as well as through a selection carried out jointly by members of our team, employees of the nursery, and botanical fertile soil specialist engineers. The second phase will encompass transplanting this vegetation onto the site built extending into the sea.