La Promenade des Crêtes - Praille Acacias Vernets (PAV)

SWING OUT

The reading of the Promenade des Crêtes specification offered by the SWING OUT project provides a different interpretation of the site and a simplification of the programme. It grasps the opportunity presented by the Promenade to allow for the growing urban area by establishing a new interface with the location’s physical characteristics. The concept here applies to the broader landscape of the Geneva basin in the area delimited by the Jura and Salève. On this site it reconnects with the orographical manifestations of how this territory was formed : moraine plateaux, the alluvial plain and breaks in the hillside. The project relies on the ‘wild and intractable character’ of the hilly terrain, which has kept the city’s expansion at bay. It takes the view that the grassland around the railway embankment and the steep woodlands should be maintained to accompany the fluidity of the Promenade. It proposes reactivating the existing balcony stretches, terracing and viewpoints and building a new belvedere, the ‘Café Surville’. But this is not what the project is about ! Focusing its energy on three sites that traverse the hilly area, the project proposes three ‘architectural condensers’ which firmly and elegantly pose the question of the spatial relationship between high and low, near and far, horizontal and vertical, and between the parts of the city that are expanding. Using a (multi-pile) system built on piles, these three structures raised above ground level cross the slope and the obstacles in their way while remaining independent of them, somewhere between artifice and the ground, thereby ensuring the continuity of the green embankment.

Multi-pile structure No. 1 : FOLD. Between Avenue Eugène-Lance and the far end of the new residential district, alongside the railway tracks, a ramp provides access from ‘top to the bottom of the green carpet of flower meadows, creating a feeling of belonging to a much larger area that extends as far as the tops of the Jura’.

Multi-pile structure No. 2 : STRETCH. Between the Lancy-Pont-Rouge CEVA railway station (at the centre of the business and residential districts) and the Surville district, a long, extended and continuous ramp extends along the ‘forest of rail pylons’ and through the oak and hornbeam woodlands, up to a point to the right of railway tunnel portal. This bridge is extended, at the bottom end of the Parc Chuit, by a ramped cycle path at ground level. A flight of steps provides a more direct link to the pathway for pedestrians.

Multi-pile structure No. 3 : SPRING. Between the northern end of the Parc de Surville (adjoining the future residential district) and the PAV-Acacias district beyond the ‘Boulevard des Jeunes’, a ramp with viewpoints continuing onto a footbridge offers an architectural progression from top to bottom of the moraine and over the traffic running along the boulevard. This progression is accompanied by an urban elevator. The project proposes retaining the villa and converting it into a ‘Café Surville’.

The Jury was impressed by the ‘brave thinking’ of this project, which has confidence in the resources offered by architecture, its concepts and its technology in contributing to the development of a contemporary landscape and to nature conservation.