HIC Arquitectura

Fuente: ehl, Richter-Dahl Rocha

During the next weeks HIC arquitectura will publish the 4 winning projects of the competition “Campus Development Forum” for the extension of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne.

The students of ten architecture universities from around the world, along with students from EHL, met in early July to devise their future place of studies. This year the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), the oldest hotel management school in the world, is celebrating its 120th anniversary and is looking to the future by devising the new campus extension.

Driven by a new strategy, EHL has put in place a unique and innovative process to create the advanced infrastructure that will accompany its future expansion.The project, named Campus Development Forum, is aimed at devising the new architectural face of the internationally renowned institution for a horizon of 2020. The Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne wanted those who are primarily concerned – the students – to propose their vision of an ideal campus. Their different sensitivities and cultures will enable them to rise better than anybody to the multicultural and transgenerational challenges of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, which boasts 80 nationalities, 3 programmes and 360 staff members, lecturers, professors and researchers.

This approach, which is both academic and practical, enables the students to fully participate in the process of developing a real architectural project. EHL is being assisted with the handling of the project by the Lausanne architects’ office Richter-Dahl Rocha & Associés, who are coordinating the teachers and students involved to devise a creative project that is feasible and complies with urban standards. The students will in particular have to create 650 new accommodation units, an application hotel, new sports infrastructure and a living area.

An international campus
Coming from Spain, South Korea, Argentina, Portugal, India, the United States, Slovenia but also from Switzerland and Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, the students met on the EHL site from July 2 to 5 this year to share their experiences and present their project to a committee of experts made up of internationally renowned architects such as Francisco J. Mangado, João Nunes, Ignacio Dahl Rocha and Patrick Jordi, who had won the competition in 2008 for the extensions to the EHL site.

At the end of the forum on the EHL site, the architects’ office Richter-Dahl Rocha & Associés will select the best ideas and summarize them to come up with a master plan that will be revealed in early 2014. The Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne and the architects’ office that is assisting them are convinced that the wealth of human exchanges is the source of creativity and new ways of conceiving of the world that surrounds us. In the opinion of architect and professor Ignacio Dahl Rocha, “Creativity is no longer only that of an individual genius but is linked to a collective creative process. This project is unique because it will bring together the creativity enriched by the cultural differences of the participants.”

In the view of Michel Rochat, director of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, the future campus has to embody the spirit of the institution: “Thanks to this innovative project, which is one of the practical embodiments of the school’s ambitious development strategy, our campus will profile itself even more as the benchmark venue and meeting place for hospitality industry professionals.”

A selection of the works completed by the students of the ten universities will be displayed in an exhibition at EHL on the first day of the forum. Students, teachers, representatives of EHL and the municipality of Lausanne, sustainable development experts, landscapers and sociologists will thus be able to exchange views on the ideas and visions of the hotel management school’s future campus.

Location: Lausane, Switzerland

Sofia Santos, Portugal