Students:  Florian Nussberger and Lewis Williams

In the Aare Valley on the foot of the Jura Mountain Ridge sprawling suburbs, logistic centers and the infrastructure corridors of the main North south and East West Axis through Switzerland conceal a formerly idyllic river-landscape that marks a transition zone between the Pre-Alps in the south and the Jura in the north of the site. Today Olten, Egerkingen, Oftringen and Zofingen are mainly perceived from the highway or national train lines hidden behind noise barriers. The City network in this area serves as a support structure for other, more distinguished and well known urban centers. The project started from a meticulous survey of the conditions on ground portraying a fragmented settlement landscape where national and international connectivity blocks local connections. The proposal of a new network for local and slow mobility that would allow for a direct experience of the scattered landscape elements, tie the fragments together and mark clear limits to formless building-zones is a multilayered answer to the complexities of the contemporary urban condition.

new network of local mobility