MEP TRAVERSEE DU RHONE EN VILLE DE SION

Sion city centre, in the Rhone Valley, has always turned its back to the river, as to avoid the constant threat of flooding. As a consequence, the river is currently perceived as the city periphery. However, the recently planned “third adjustment of the Rhone river bed” is currently a great chance to contrast this tendency and to discover the river: an important element of Sion urban identity. Coherently, our design strategy considers the river and its natural and artificial form as the relevant spatial structure of contemporary Sion, which is currently a large- scale, low-density urban system spreading all along the valley.

The project is, thus, based on two main interventions. First, we propose to create a linear park along the river banks, activating new relations between the existing settlements and the river. As a second step, we suggest transforming the under-used industrial sites between the city centre and the river in a denser, mixed-use urban fabric, well integrated into the new river’s park system.