INT.IN THE CITY:
Bonaventure Project

Who says that kids growing up in the city can’t climb, jump and have as much fun as those living countryside? Who says that urban CO2 concentration levels can’t be lowered by planting trees like in everywhere else?

Right next to the Bonaventure Expressway, a few feet away from the Ville-Marie tunnel entrance, city residents and urban tourists are invited, rain or shine, to be guided by their imagination and let themselves be carried away by the mere pleasure of having fun.

Overview of the Bonaventure Project, an environmentally conscious landscape architecture design by Groupe Rousseau Lefebvre.

Text: Juli Pisano. Photos: Marie-Ève Boisvert.

ART AND NATURE AT BONAVENTURE

Made possible after the demolition of the elevated Bonaventure highway, the Bonaventure Project, a landscape architecture project designed by Groupe Rousseau Lefebvre, hosts a new urban boulevard celebrating art and nature and giving back hectares of green to citizens.

Here, thousands of plants, requiring no watering once their germination completed, significantly enhance the biomass and biodiversity of the neighbourhood.

There are now twice as many trees as before in the area, allowing for the capture of more than 310 tons of carbon dioxide, over the course of the next thirty years. These trees also intercept more than 29,000 cubic metres of water, otherwise drained by sewers. Grassy zones, vegetation and small gardens also act as ingenious ways to control water and rain intakes in situ.

Brilliant! Beautiful! Eco-efficient!

Add to that the hipness and attractiveness of the project, the masterful combination of azur grass carpeting and orange play modules, as well as the park’s innovative approach to art integration and find yourself before a fun-filled playground with a cause: the positive environmental impact it holds for Montreal.

The park is located south-east of Place Bonaventure and is a five-minute walk away from the Bonaventure Metro Station. It is open daily from sunrise to sunset.

Rousseau Lefebvre is a multidisciplinary firm of professionals in development and environment grouped around a common mission entered on sustainable development. Founded in 1989, the firm now has four partners and some twenty highly experienced professionals. The company provides its clients with a team of specialists in the fields of landscape architecture, urban design, urban planning and the environment. By working side by side on the same projects, they share their expertise and their points of view to develop high quality and sustainable projects.

› Consult Rousseau Lefebvre‘s website