IMD Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center, architecture d'intérieur

Located in a charming park planted with trees, on the shores of Lake Leman in the Swiss city of Lausanne, the building houses a 350 seats auditorium, seminar and classrooms, a cafeteria and an inside car park. The specifications required flexible spaces that could adapt to the various teaching configurations whilst being thought of in a long-term perspective. Flanked with meeting rooms, the little auditoriums of variable sizes are placed along the building perimeter on the first floor. A patio on the upper floor and an atrium on the ground floor, covered by a glass roof canopy, bring natural light into the heart of this very deep building. Such openings also give the circulations spaces a friendly atmosphere that fosters informal encounters between students.

Above a semi-buried concrete base, the first floor and the roofing form a self-supporting structure hanging on a network of triangulated steel beams which emerge as a roofing, serving as a pretext for the presence of a shaded pergola. This original static system and the material chosen perfectly respond to the constraints of the project. Transferring the static height onto the roofing enabled to compensate for the very limited size of the construction. The minimum floor height allowed for an optimum use of the interior space: the flexible spaces adapt to the various types of teaching now and in the future. The structure has a 19 to 48 m span, essential above the auditorium and ideal for the hall or the classrooms. The light framing of alveolar steel beams enable a simple and flexible disposition of the technical conduits. The weight of the structure has been reduced and the duration of the works shortened. The structural works were thereby carried out in only 8 months.

Thanks to this structural choice, the facades freely express the diversity of the interior spaces. The concrete part fulfils its role as the base of the building. The large bay-window reveals the open spaces and the cafeteria on the ground floor. The white facade ( a metal sheet, painted with a component, specially developped for this work) discloses the seminar rooms on the first floor. These multiple layers with their openings in panels play a dynamic shift in the composition of the facade.

The project was awarded the 2009 Prix Acier. The jury deemed that “this building illustrates in an attractive way the economical and ecological use of steel in multiple-floor buildings. Even though the material isn’t hardly shown, the generous elegance of the premises and their luminosity testify of the protential of metallic construction“.