IMD New Meeting Place

The New Meeting Place is the second of four projects designed by Richter and Dahl Rocha for the IMD - Institute for Management Development - as part of the institution's desire to improve its infrastructure and expand its campus to accommodate a growing student population. Located in the heart of the campus, the new restaurant project is set in a large, tree-lined park. It faces the New Learning Centre, the first building designed by the architects and completed in 2002. It involves the complete renovation of the existing restaurant, located in a masonry building that once housed the estate's stables, and an extension. The extension is inserted in the centre of this old building, between two side wings, and gradually opens onto the park. Unlike the New Learning Centre, a compact building overlooking the site, the new restaurant is in direct contact with the park at ground level. Built using a composite steel and timber structure, the new pavilion has three façades composed of large glass surfaces set in vertical wooden elements that serve both as a structure and as sunshades. The wide eaves protect the façades and accentuate the horizontal character of the intervention. The slightly curved south façade curves around a hundred-year-old chestnut tree, which has thus been preserved. The high transparency of the façades allows the continuity of the park to be perceived through the pavilion. To further emphasise the building's integration into the natural terrain, the main entrance is located at an intermediate level, on a welcoming esplanade from which the interior and exterior circulation routes are distributed. These are structured around a concrete and brick volume which, while evoking the massive appearance of the old stables, allows the technical installations specific to the new pavilion to be concentrated. The restaurant occupies two levels, the ground floor with its large terrace and the first floor offering unobstructed views of the park, with the lake and the Alps in the background. The interior spaces express a tension between the verticality of the sunshades and glazing and the horizontal space created by the extension of the roof.