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Architects: Kengo Kuma & Associates
- Area: 30767 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Erieta Attali, Adrien Barakat, Javier Villar
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Manufacturers: Joux SA, Mazzoli SA, Regent, Roethlisberger, SOTTAS
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Project Management: IHEID The Graduate Institute, Pierre Guth
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Structure: 2M ingénierie civile sa, David Martin (Partner)
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Lighting Design: Light IQ, Gerardo Olvera (Partner), Joe Riley
Text description provided by the architects. In 2017, KKAA won the international competition “Résidence étudiante du Grand Morillon” organized by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. This brief requested a proposal for a 700 beds student housing building. Besides the various types of apartments, there was the need for public and common spaces - common kitchens, laundry rooms, sports facilities, library, study areas, cafeteria, etc.-
We wanted to avoid the usual vertical program segregation (of public facilities on the ground floor and apartments on the above floors) that heavily depends on elevator circulations. Instead, we proposed an ascendant promenade “carved” into the building’s volume, which would allow pedestrian access to all floors, from the ground floor all the way up to the rooftops. All the necessary public facilities would be allocated along this promenade.
In this way, the architecture encourages a more walking-conscious lifestyle and provokes encounters between its inhabitants. The hope is to offer a community-like experience to all these hundreds of students who will be coming from very different origins and that will be cohabitating here for the years to come.
