Euro-Asian Design Studio II: Recycling Highways

In the context of the restrictions imposed by the COVID19 pandemic, the design work within the studio was exceptionally situated only in Europe, within the context of Strasbourg (France). The Asian dimension, and more particularly the Euro-Asian mirror, was mainly discussed through the analysis of references & theoretical for similar cases and themes in Europe and in Asia. 

From the design viewpoint, the students were confronted with the Strasbourg metropolis, and in particular with the issues and opportunities raised by the downgrading of the A35 highway, a large-scale metropolitan operation which lays the foundations for a profound redefinition of urbanity in the city. This makes it possible to address the spatial, landscape and mobility specificities of the surrounding territories while questioning current and future uses for this now obsolescent infrastructure.  How to recycle the highway? How to reconsider its role within the city of Strasbourg? And what major transformations would that allow for Strasbourg's urbanity and city-life? 

Cutting the city center from the western districts, the design scenarios had to defend a theoretical and spatial stand while taking into consideration the public debate and the numerous former design projects of urban renewal of the highway area and the western districts. Also, what project for the former A35 highway could sustain the ambition of Strasbourg newly elected mayor, that of "making Strasbourg the European capital of ecological, social and democratic transition" ? What will be the new Strasbourg “Westside story”, what new urban narratives will be told through a multi-scale project for this infrastructure and its surrounding territories?