EPFL Quartier de l'Innovation

This new quarter of the EPFL campus was destined to provide office and laboratory space for companies that are working in conjunction with the school. In contrast to the character of the first phases of campus development in the late 1970s, focused on modular structures linked to an elevated pedestrian walkway, our interventions in the southern part of the campus proposed to rehabilitate the unbuilt natural terrain as a public space for circulation and as a setting for student life. Despite its relatively high density, the project reinforces that idea by distributing eight buildings in a natural landscape setting in such a way as to control the scale, spatial quality, and character of the interstitial public spaces.

The buildings evoke an atmosphere appropriate to technological research in a convivial atmosphere and at a human scale. The utilisation of white enamelled glass, smooth or with a graphic motif on the inner face of the opaque surfaces, contributes to this. This white background heightens the green tinge typical of ordinary glass, which together with the natural landscaping elements foster a uniquely chromatic effect.

Two of the buildings designed for this quarter were intended to house laboratories. They establish border at the western edge of the ensemble, and are distinguished from the rest by their facades, which combine bare concrete with details in anodised natural aluminium in the openings and the technical attics.