At the beginning of this Genevan tale, there is a crown between the city and the new cities surrounding: everyone is persuaded that it will slowly and gently mutate following an organic process. And then, there are interventions which we now suspect have frozen this process of programmed mutation. The novel puts forward numerous projects of densification, innumerable planning controversies, several manifestations of greed and mobilisation. We are trying to find a way to move the plot forward. We are relying on its characters. We hope for the mobilisation of new actants. Simultaneously, we will multiply the possible tales of the zone 5a, the ‘zone villa’. We want to demonstrate how it is an incredibly heterogeneous zone, distinguished by contrasting landscape- and patrimonial qualities. The plot thickens; the narrative threads increase. How, then, will this novel end?

The public course 2012-2013 of the Fondation Braillard Architectes aims to problematise and thematise this Genevan tale of a ‘zone villa’, always and already in a state of mutation. The course consists in interventions organised along three temporalities: diagnostic, tools, debates [flyer].

Conference speakers

Emmanuel Rey, Francesco Della Casa, Marie-Paule Thomas, Didier Challand, Luigi Snozzi, Julien Fornet, Lauren Baddeley…