Ouchy II

Located at the bottom of Avenue de la Harpe, a stone's throw from the port of Ouchy in Lausanne, the building replaces a 1933 building that no longer met contemporary expectations in terms of habitability and comfort.

Built for the Société Coopérative d'Habitation de Lausanne (SCHL) by architects Frédéric Gilliard and Frédéric Godet, the demolished building comprised 50 cramped and dilapidated flats in need of major renovation.
Well integrated into the urban fabric, the 9.40-metre-thick building, distributed by four stairwells, had a configuration that was not conducive to redevelopment, which led the SCHL to plan its replacement with a new building that would make the most of the construction potential offered by Lausanne's General Land Use Plan (PGA).

The thickness of the building has been optimised, and although the living spaces are more generous, a greater number of affordable flats have been created.

The building houses 67 flats – comprising 2 one-bedroom, 25 two-bedroom, 32 three-bedroom and 8 four-bedroom flats – distributed across three stairwells on seven floors. The three cores are connected to two levels of shared underground parking with 34 car spaces and 11 motorbike spaces.
The roof terrace has been converted into a meeting and leisure area for the building's residents, thanks to funding from the CMHC's cultural percentage scheme known as ‘Plus CMHC’. It includes a communal garden with stunning views of the lake, children's play equipment and a 30m² room that can be rented by the building's tenants.
The building meets the Minergie energy label standards.

The main challenge of the project was to replace a building that was well integrated into its context in terms of its volume and the expression of its street façade with a new element that would fit into the urban environment in the same way while offering increased liveability and comfort.
The project incorporates features of the demolished building and several neighbouring historic buildings - the expression of a base defining horizontality and regulating the relationship to the ground in a sloping street, the sobriety and consistency of materials and colours, the proportion of openings, the cantilevered balconies, the expressiveness of the angles - while reinterpreting them in a contemporary way.