Fallow

Place Flagey presents a thoughtful adaptation of an urban square originally designed by Latz + Partner in 2007, situated above an underground parking facility, and updated in 2025 by Kollektif Landscape. The jury recognized the recent intervention as a model for how existing urban surfaces can be recalibrated in response to the escalating demands of climate resiliency. The insertion of new vegetation is both precise and strategic. Without compromising the square’s existing programmatic flexibility—allowing for fairs, markets, and public events—, and in a constrained setting on top of an underground parking, the designers have introduced biodiversity, microclimatic benefits, and shaded refuges along its periphery.

Although the adaptation subtly shifts the atmosphere of the square, it remains in a respectful dialogue with the original design by Latz + Partner. The result is neither an erasure nor an overstatement, but rather a measured augmentation: a restrained, site-specific calibration that addresses the needs of a changing urban climate without abandoning the integrity of the inherited spatial identity. The jury regarded the project not only as a recognition of the design itself, but also of the progressive stance taken by the commissioning city authorities—an approach that seeks quality in frugal and incremental processes.