Nuova Lugano

Lugano, Switzerland

Urban Developments

Architects: KCAP Zürich

Location: Lugano, Switzerland
Year: 2021
Client: Stadt Lugano
Program: Territorial master plan for the city of Lugano
Role: Urban planer
Participating parties: ATA, mavo, Studio Habitat, ARUP, IBV, Barbara Antonioli, AIDEC, Claudio Ferrata, CBM

To face the challenges posed by shifting socio-economic, institutional and territorial features, the city of Lugano has equiped itself with three programmatic governance instruments: the dines of development over a ten-year horizon, the financial plan and a single, coordinated municipal master plan (PDcom), with common objectives and guidelines that take into account the characteristics of each district. The PDcom is a strategic, concrete, dynamic, and communicative tool that serves as the base for harmonizing the regulatory plans of the individual districts.

To effectively outline the city’s territorial and urban design for the next 20 years, an interdisciplinary team of experts lead by KCAP looked especially into the positioning and image of the city at the various scales - international, national, cantonal, regional (territorial capital). Designing across scales is essential to verify the territorial implications and to identify the effective strategies and measures for a future-proof development framework. The holistic approach grasps and interprets the great societal, the economic, the environmental and the territorial shifts of the pas decades. In particular, looking into the city’s positioning and image at the various scales - international, national, cantonal, regional - shows the ability to face these challenges in a dynamic and innovative way. A way of seeing things in relation to the surrounding area, represented by the agglomeration, to verify the territorial implications and to identify the most fruitful strategies and measures for a future-proof framework. This approach pays special attention to these long-term project’s main issues; community engagement, and a combined balance between local and international success factors.