Housing and School in Genève Vernier
180 housing units, 16 classes school, shopping facilities.
Restricted competition, finalist project.
Vernier Concorde is an area at the edge of the city of Geneva, in an environment in which the urban structure changes from a consolidated and well-defined condition to become hybrid and heterogeneous.
The project area, located to the North-East with respect to Lake Geneva, constant point of reference for the whole city, is distinguished by a great variety of elements that are very different one from another and lacking a clear and structured system of interrelationship: urban villas, large conglomerations, infrastructure and natural areas all coexist as so many singular elements within an irregular and patchy whole.
The project is conceived as a device for the conjunction of the various landmarks within the context, an instrument of mediation between different scales, densities and orientations. The idea of continuity in the public space has fashioned the structure of the spaces in the project, articulating the development in two main and opposing crosswalks, one longitudinal, that traces the whole block, rendering it porous and permeable, and one transversal, crossing the road axis of rue de l’Ain and activating a link with the large residential buildings on the other side of the road.
The empty public space is defined by the existence of different volumes: a commercial base that on one side rigorously takes on the large road with fast-moving traffic, rue de l’Ain, playing up its linearity and continuity while on the other side diminishing itself in a more complex manner within the lot, where it generates different scales of perception and more intimate and concentrated areas.
The dwellings are located on this base, arranged around three distinctive elements; the development of the structures and their disposition is the result of an effort to combine an East-West orientation favourable to internal environmental quality and a physical and perceptual distancing from the large road with heavy traffic through indirect, foreshortened views, consistent separation and a scaling-down of the density through development in various elements. Internally, the dwellings are designed to face with different orientations and spans, regulated through thermal glasshouses that introduce an intermediary aspect of exchange with the exterior, both in physical and climactic terms.
The internal distribution is organised to render the dwelling modifiable and adaptable to different configurations of use, with spaces that can be personalised to suit varying needs in recognition of the fundamental characteristic of contemporary society that is change.
The school is at the centre of the public space, a focal point that can engender flows, dynamics and exchanges by sharing its spaces for extra scholastic activities.
A hybrid shape of systems with varied relationships that can produce contextually different reactions: rigorous but articulated facades, alignments and fracturing, macro and micro: a fragment of city.
Client: City of Genève, Privera Construction Management
Associated Architect: SCAPE
Lead Architect: CZA
Landscape design: PAISA
Task: Preliminary design
Energetic performance: Plan Climat Ville de Genève
Chronology: 2014
Housing: 17.500 sq m
Retail: 6.000 sq m
School: 6.500 sq m
Budget: 77.000.000 € (80.000.000 CHF)
Image Credits: Marco Tripodi
