Every design for Villenave-D'ornon

Villenave-d'Ornon is Bordeaux's watery southern neighbour: a commune on the left bank of the Garonne where lakes, old gravel pits and the channels of the Eau Bourde fill the spaces between neighbourhoods. It is the fourth-largest suburb of Bordeaux, Vilanava d'Ornon in Gascon, and its station sits on the line out to Langon.

There is a calm here that people from the city centre rarely expect. Anglers try for pike and carp at the ponds of La Roubine on the riverbank, the European pond turtle and the red-eyed damselfly live in the flooded quarries of Formalaise, and the Lac de Versein makes a quiet circuit for an evening walk. The town hall itself occupies Canteloup, an eighteenth-century château, while the Église Saint-Martin, the Château de Sallegourde and the remains of the Aqueduc gallo-romain give the place a longer memory than its suburban streets suggest.

Coming home means leaving the ring road behind, heading towards the river and knowing the water is never more than a few streets away. That is the feeling of belonging here.