Hybrid Urbanity
Quartier Oassis © Bauart / Yves André
Recently published by Birkhaüser, HYBRID URBANITY details the many challenges inherent in the regeneration of urban territories. Through a wide range of texts, documents and photographs – including an essay by Bruno Marchand – it provides a monograph on the Oassis neighborhood, designed on a former industrial brownfield site in West Lausanne by Bauart, a firm in which Prof. Emmanuel Rey is a partner.
In the context of the climate emergency, shrinking resources, and the environmental crisis, awareness of the many consequences caused by the urban sprawl of recent decades is leading to the promotion of territorial strategies aimed at preserving natural environments and arable land by reorienting the built environment inward as a priority. This approach is not limited to city centers but also concerns a wide range of territories on the vast and varied urban fringe
Today, the transformation of peripheral areas - often anonymous or chaotic spaces – is calling for a search for concrete alternatives. In that spirit, the creation of the Oassis neighborhood on a former industrial brownfield site in West Lausanne stands out for its singular approach, opting for urbanity and hybridization. The approach here revives the compositional principles of the traditional city while at the same time embracing a dynamic of ecological transition and climate resilience.
Both an urban fabric compatible with potential neighboring developments and an architectural object imbued with urbanity, this “fragment of a city” is organized around three types of garden to give concrete expression to the many challenges of suburban regeneration.
