Peri-urban intervention: Conservation-Permeability-Density

Location: Ginebra, Switzerland

Year: 2015

Framework:  Europan13 Competition

#Dismantle #Reuse

Intervening in Geneva implies altering a place with an already balanced relationship between city and nature and high quality of life, so a proposal designed from respect and deep reflection is needed.

The proposal puts PROTECTION of the pre-existence ahead of new construction and enhances it through an INTEGRAL STRATEGY that is carried out with PUNCTUAL INTERVENTIONS adapted to each case in a continuous interdisciplinary process.

The intervention strategy aims to:

  • An increase in the PERMEABILITY of the grid (connection + porosity) for all the different scales; promoting the reduction of traffic, increased mobility, and accessibility to existing infrastructures. It proposes the elimination and minimization of barriers, the hierarchization and redefinition of roads, the recovery and dynamization of voids.
  • It calls for the management and use of community space, regardless of its public or private nature, at a political, economic, social, cultural and urban level.
  • Given the need to DENSIFY the constructed urban structure, but to protect the territory as well, the challenge of not building arises as a necessary action. Besides preserving environments of high ecological value, it is necessary to reflect on the square meters consumed by housing, roads or infrastructures. An urban intervention does not have to involve construction.
  • It is necessary to DIVERSIFY to integrate the new population and enrich the urban and social grid, breaking the monotony inherited from the residential sprawl. An exercise in conceptual innovation is proposed, to conceive new uses and programs in traditional spaces. To provide new contents to the existing physical scenario, responding to the demand of the citizens.

To conclude, it proposes a review of approaches, dynamics and processes that involve a new way of using and adapting the existing physical framework to new needs. An approach that allows us to preserve a valuable heritage.

The dossier of the proposal is available for consultation and download here:

The dossier of the proposal is available for consultation and download here:

Dossier of the proposal