Maison des étudiants Edgar et Danièle de Picciotto

Type

Habitation, Éducation

Date de réalisation

2012

Ingénieur civil

Association Ott B. et Uldry C. sàrl avec Thomas Jundt Ingénieurs Civils SA

Maître de l'ouvrage

IHEID ( Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (The Graduate Institute)

Autre(s) intervenant(s)

Vogt Landschaftsarchitekten

Surface brute

10'490 m2

Coût

35'100'000

Procédure

mandat d'études parallèles

Architecte

Lacroix Chessex

Interview de l'architecte

Descriptif

The building stands at the heart of the Sécheron district, a large brownfield site left empty following the closing of former electrotechnical workshops. Its conversion has been in progress since the early 2000s. In this context, the students’ residence building had to meet the double constraint of installing dwellings opposite the railway lines and on a parking lot for pre-determined transfers, whose form and structure had to be respected. The project takes the form of a curved, tight volume, long and narrow, whose very elegant proportions stand out on the site. The parking lot roof serves as a base raised in relation to the rails. The collective functions of the ground floor are located at this level, along with the entrances to the staircases, the large common room and the service rooms. Above, the one hundred and thirty-eight apartments are distributed along curved circulation areas. This choice of layout solves both the problem of train noise - by playing on a full back-plate that becomes narrower towards the top and a sound absorber under the slab – and gives a very horizontal expression to the façade. In a traditional layout, the day areas are on the circulation area side and the bedroom on the other side facing the Alps. The construction in reinforced concrete with its large perpendicular walls – superimposed on the parking lot frame – makes it possible to place overhand slabs on the four facades.