Bussigny Côté Gare: a green district between walks on the heights and soft mobility

The concept of this district is to integrate nature areas on all floors. Green roofs, hanging plants, planted containers, green waterfalls… The idea, in the long term, is to allow vegetation to colonize the building wherever possible.

We have conceptualized different spaces, all open to the public and freely accessible. In the interior courtyards of the buildings, the hearts of blocks offer areas of grassland, indigenous trees with great development to provide shade and various urban amenities.

The square to the east, in connection with the station, continues with a wide pedestrian walkway that leads to the activity area. It is extended by a set of footbridges which connect all the buildings to each other.

The great challenge of this project is to design quality outdoor facilities in a plot with a reduced footprint. That's why, in collaboration with the architects, we decided to make the most of the height to create a suspended public promenade that crosses the neighborhood.

The density of the project encouraged us to think differently to offer quality planted spaces. Our bias is to exploit the height. To green the entire neighborhood by creating a public space that starts from the ground floor and extends through the different floors of the buildings. Exhibition area, dry fountain, light effects, seats and community spaces enliven this walk open to the public. Connecting a network of footbridges to play with views and create breaths.

Located on the roof of the car park, the activity platform represents the core of the landscaping, activities and uses of the project. Accessible to the public and with an unobstructed view, this planted garden offers relaxation areas, grassy areas, games for children, shared vegetable gardens and private terraces.

The plant palette on this upper part is made up of perennials, flowering shrubs, trees with small and medium growths. Despite a high load-bearing capacity (1000 kg/m2), we had to resort to distribution slabs, lightened earth and a strategic distribution of more massive trees on the pillars of the car park to meet the complex technical constraints of a park on slab .

Started in 2015, Côté Gare is our first project carried out in BIM at the agency. At the time, the BIM process was little used in construction in French-speaking Switzerland, and even less in landscaping. Not content with having been precursors, this first experience above all enabled us to grasp the innovative aspect of this approach to architectural and landscape design. A dive into the digital model that gave us a taste for technological innovations!