Quai Bèll – Redevelopment of the lakeshore in Paradiso
Paradiso, Lugano, Switzerland
Competition 2016
Redevelopment of the lakeshore of Paradiso, Lugano, Switzerland. Creation of the “Lido Paradiso”, with leisure facilities including swimming pools, a spa, a bar, a restaurant, a boat dock, and a diving school. Creation of a “square–platform” featuring fountains, a pool with an ecological waterfall, and a four-storey parking building. The project also includes the construction of wooden piers forming walkways, promenades, and seating areas along the entire intervention axis.
client: Region of Valle d’Aosta, Department of Public Works, Soil Protection and Public Housing.
Department of Planning, Soil Protection and Water Resources; Single Procurement Station and Planning of Public Works.
project: Atelier(s) Alfonso Femia *AF517 with Bruno Huber Architetti
landscape design: Projet BASE sarl Paysage/Urbanisme
structural engineering: AR&PA Engineering
immagini: ©Atelier(s) Alfonso Femia/AF517 with Bruno Huber Architetti & BASE
Can we still believe in a celestial or earthly paradise?
Places, just like objects, do not have the exclusive power to make us happy.
Music can make us happy.
A continuo line that offers citizens an accompaniment of joy, rhythm, suspension, calm, and space.
Spaces—perhaps even more than objects—have the power to change life.
A garden for children and adults, a cinema, a nightclub, a waterfall, a square on the water, or a beach can change it even more. Along a continuous narrative of nature and path.
This is precisely the reason why we believe in our profession:
the possibility of changing people’s lives.
This change does not occur solely through an aesthetic transformation, but through the creation of a place, defined by the way inhabitants use it.
The transformation from space to place is the theme and the purpose of the project.
Lido Mercurio – A renewed Lido
The intervention on the Conca d’Oro Municipal Pool focuses on giving the project a strong, recognisable identity. The pool building provides the municipality of Paradiso with spaces that shift between public and private. A silos-type car park allows everyone to enjoy the new promenade, including those who do not reside in Paradiso. Its integration into the mountain makes it appear as a rock embedded in the existing landscape. A system of filtering terraces creates an ecological pool that eliminates chlorine and its toxicity.
Lido Venere – A playground for children
The conversion of the existing dockyard includes the placement of a children’s play area on its rooftop. Slides and rope courses offer Paradiso’s children a completely new play and visual experience. A Mediterranean garden sets a comfortable distance between the public space and the road. Families can sit beside the new attraction, enjoying the view of the lake while keeping an eye on their children.
Lido Marte – Intimate wooden platforms and a linear garden in shades of red.
Lido Giove – A former pool transformed into a silver garden and a path that touches the lake.
Lido Saturno – A lakeside terrace as a meeting place and a golden garden.
Lido Sole – Riva Paradiso and its new Promenade
A curved wooden walkway allows visitors to approach the water or sit and rest. Circular planting beds embrace new greenery and existing trees, offering an unusual entrance to Riva Paradiso while respecting what is already there. The reflecting pool offers a new experience of the lake and makes the new landscape intervention immediately recognisable.