Abstract
The City of Lyon has made the reconquest of the Rhône and Saône Rivers an important component of its sustainable development strategy. Adopting the "Blue Plan" as early as 1991, Lyon beat its French rivals such as Bordeaux, Toulouse and Paris. Since the early 1990s, the City has improved the banks of the Rhône and transformed former industrial and port areas into posh neighborhoods. This is the case, for example, of the new district called "Lyon Confluence" at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône. These operations respond to the objectives of the "sustainable city" (creation of green spaces and soft circulation, urban densification in the form of eco-neighborhoods, etc.).. However this strategy does not contribute to the ecological restoration of urban rivers, as it is often limited to landscaping the banks to recover rainwater or build bicycle paths. In addition, this strategy is highly localized because the facilities are focused on downtown waterfronts. Small urban rivers, tributaries of the Rhône and the Saône, were not given much consideration by municipal authorities before now. It is very difficult to develop and restore small urban rivers because of legal, technical and economic problems. In addition, large rivers represent landscape assets while small rivers are invisible behind buildings or buried under roads. As part of a planning workshop in 2012 and 2013, we studied how to rehabilitate a small river called "Ruisseau des Planches", located in the center of Vaise Lyon. The study shows that urban renewal offers "windows of opportunity" for the ecological restoration of small urban rivers, if architects and planners integrate water issues early in the process. After describing the main stages of river development in Lyon, this article presents the advantages and limitations of the "Ruisseau des Planches" project. The article details the design principles that were conceived during the workshop to promote ecological rehabilitation and urban renewal as a single process.