For each new neighborhood, a new park

Extending over sixty hectares, the site allocated for the new Ronquoz district is situated between a railroad network and the Rhône River. The full transformation of the area will unfold over a period of at least thirty odd years. Taking this into consideration, the project has sought to lay out the way and means of its evolution.  The challenge therefore lies in transforming the site gradually and in a consistent fashion. The architects Herzog & de Meuron have chosen a density for the project favoring a small building typology over that of individual homes. As they develop in parallel to the railway tracks and the highway, the newly built volumes will also be following the direction of the valley, while leaving in their middle substantial space for landscape. The primary defining landscape element of Ronquoz is a wooded belt or strip of land running the whole length of the site from east to west. Tree-lined and dedicated to pedestrians and light forms of transport, the belt meanders its way across the district staying within its delineated space. Set up at low cost, it immediately imparts an identity to the neighborhood, creating as well a physical link between the existing city and the larger landscape that surrounds. Over time, a succession of newly created parks will attach themselves to the wooded strip of land from either side. This park chain will be shaped by the various property conditions, flexibly adapting itself as the continual process of transformation unfolds.