© Rolex Learning Center, EPFL Lausanne/ Architekten: SANAA/©Roland Halbe
The location of the university on the north shore of Lake Geneva, with a backdrop of glacier-covered mountains exceeding the 4000 m mark, is unparalleled. The new heart of the campus is also one-of-a-kind: a porous rectangle undulating like the hills in the surrounding moraine landscape is perforated by fourteen rounded patios. The Learning Center unites a wide variety of functions on the main level in order to foster trans-disciplinary exchange of ideas among the scientists and attract top international researchers. With its unconventional concept and the organic formal language, the explorable sculpture embodies the university’s mottos and becomes its logo for transparency, interconnectedness and innovation within an ordered framework.