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OMA is currently working on an urban renewal masterplan for Vallee de la Chimie.

"La Vallee de la Chimie" is one of  the biggest chemical and petrochemical parks in Europe, located on the outskirts of Lyon, France. With more than 1 000 companies, 6 research and development centers and 20 000 jobs concentrated on 800 hectares, la Vallee de la Chimie encompasses all contemporary challenges related with urban renewal. The historical conditions that once allowed it to flourish, now isolate it from the rest of the city and hamper its development.

Advantageously situated between Lyon and Saint-Etienne, this territory is too strategic to be excluded from the urban renewal and land optimization processes. Lacerated by a dense network of infrastructures, the valley is an archipelago of industrial sites with heavily contaminated ground, disconnected from any urban fabric and natural components.
The masterplan aims to explore and set up a new model to support the economic transition towards cleantech and promote a coexistence between risk management and urban development.

Developed in close collaboration with a multidisciplinary team (architects, urban planners, landscape architects, engineers, sociologist...), the project must reveal the intelligence of the territory, create a new social imagery more welcoming and appropriate to Lyon's citizens, and generate new practices and uses.

The territorial strategy will be implementation on four strategic sites that need to be developed within five years.

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