Cassarate River Park, Lugano

Within the “green mesh” of Ticino, revitalizing and upgrading the Cassarate River and some of its tributaries play an essential role in Lugano’s first green corridor. The goal is to balance the relationship between city and river, urban space and landscape. The river park runs like a streak of green from its mouth at the lake to Piana della Stampa at Cornaredo. It also acts as a green and blue hinge that opens the city’s east side to the downtown area.

This project for the Cassarate River Park offered a unique opportunity to redesign the riverbanks of the Cassarate River, which needed work to be conducted for the hydraulic arrangement of the bank. It gave us a chance to rethink the river from the point of view of the landscape, making it a new centrality by reactivating the descents of the river.

The project identifies a continuous route with descents to the river and tries to combine all of the different requirements and demands. It was essential to create more direct relations between the river and the city’s urban system and fulfil the need to be able to walk at water level. The work that has been conducted resulted in a project for the whole route and an abacus summary list of all the typological solutions proposed. The final result is helpful to the public administration and private investors.