Innovation Factory - Losone

"If you ask a fisherman, the fish of yesteryear were always bigger. We fishermen are like that: we live on memories, on good times, on adventures worth telling a hundred, a thousand times."

Giuliano is an old fisherman from Losone. He grew up on the banks of the Maggia and Melezza rivers, where he spent a lifetime casting his line thousands of times, hoping a trout would bite.

Over the years he watched those riverbanks become surrounded by new developments: industrial, commercial, residential. The water kept flowing, but the society and economy around it changed.

GF Machining Solutions (Georg Fischer), a world-class Swiss company, operated two sites in Losone: one in Saleggi, the other in Zandone. The decision was to concentrate all operations in the latter and find a new purpose for the former. For the riverbanks Giuliano loved, too, things have changed — and this time not even he can claim they were better before.

Historical context 

Between 7 and 8 August 1978, Ticino was struck by the most devastating natural disaster in its recent history. Seven people lost their lives. In Losone, the Maggia and Melezza rivers burst their banks, bringing widespread destruction.

Nearly forty years later, in 2016, atelier ribo+ was asked to develop a reactivation strategy for the Saleggi facility. The idea of an Innovation Factory for the Georg Fischer group was born.

In 2017, the studio was commissioned to plan the expansion of the Zandone headquarters, on the Melezza.

By 2020, Zandone had entered a phase of renewal, growing and expanding, gradually freeing the Saleggi site to be transformed and take on a new identity — guided by a new ownership with a genuine commitment to the city and the canton.

The contribution of atelier ribo+ covered every dimension of the process. In architecture and landscape, the studio defined both reactivation projects. In advisory, it accompanied the client through a disposal strategy for the property's buildings — one that accounted for the ongoing timelines of relocation and renewal while outlining several economically sustainable reactivation scenarios, designed to enhance the appeal of a complex whose architecture remains inseparable from its original industrial function.

Both sites had grown over the decades, first as Agie Charmilles facilities, then as GF Machining Solutions plants. Two production and administrative complexes that shaped the life and economy of Losone.

Innovative choice

atelier ribo+ received the mandate from GF Machining Solutions on the strength of its expertise in the reactivation of built heritage. Here, too, the studio's different departments worked in an integrated manner.

The process began with a market analysis to identify economically viable uses, followed by a study of how to embed them within the broader territorial context.

The site was then repositioned as a commercial project and its acquisition promoted to prospective buyers.

Beyond the architectural intervention on the buildings themselves, the Innovation Factory operation made it possible to reshape the relationship between the area — now fully part of the urban fabric — and the riverbank of the Maggia. A direct connection with the river was established, extending the district naturally towards the water. The move reflects the company's social and environmental responsibility and opens up opportunities for new economic value alongside greater liveability for the surrounding area.