Tour de l’Esplanade

In 2012 the Swiss Federal Railway (CFF) organised a competition for the Tour de l’Esplanade which also included propositions for use with respect to programs and economic viability. The site is situated on the esplanade of the old railway station of Fribourg, between the platforms and Route des Arsenaux, at the end of an abandoned zone destined for development as a new quarter. The program proposed for the tower comprises housing units, an apartment hotel, administrative offices, and commercial spaces, with the proportion of different types of occupancy being undetermined. The two levels of the base house a parking lot for 100 cars and 550 bicycles and motorcycles, as well as commercial spaces that generate the lively social character of public space.

The volumetric treatment of the tower seeks to make the most of the constraints of the building’s outline to produce a totemic structure on an urban scale. The lower floors of the volume are hollowed out, in order to free up the Esplanade and dialogue with the urban context, consisting of the former railway station on one side and on the other by the island along the Route des Arsenaux. This volumetric division thus suggests the stratification of occupancy in the tower. The public space spreads over two levels, linking the building to its context and to the city more generally. On the upper level, the Esplanade, located in front of the former station, houses the main access to the Tower. The public square is located on street level; it integrates and extends the nearby buildings of “La Genevoise” and the Banque Cantonale de Fribourg. A generous sweep of steps links these two public levels. The plan of the tower is compact and rational.

The plan of the tower is compact and rational. Its layout, with a constructive system that frees up interior spaces and results in floors of consistent ceiling height, allows flexibility of use, and thus ensures lasting functionality. The very efficient core provides for the unfettered distribution of the proposed functions, including housing, offices, hotel, and commercial spaces. The tower presents itself as an urban sculpture whose plastic visual aspect is related to the treatment of its envelope. Its ventilated double skin allows the expression of a unified and homogenous facade in spite of the diversity of occupancy and use it contains.