EPFL plans new scientific conference centre

Lausanne’s Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) unveiled plans on Tuesday for a 190-million-franc conference centre and a 505-bed student housing complex to be built in partnership with a Swiss real estate company.

The centre, capable of seating up to 3,000 people, aims to provide a venue for the “most prestigious scientific conferences in the world,” the technical university said in an announcement.

With floor space totalling 14, 150 square metres, the centre is to include a main auditorium and five auxiliary meeting rooms each capable of accommodating 250 people.

Designed by the Lausanne architects Richter Dahl Rocha & Associés, the conference centre will provide infrastructure for EPFL that is “unique in Europe,” the institute said.

The auditorium and meeting rooms will be capable of adaptation into smaller “modules” with a range of high-tech features promised, including the possible inclusion of solar panels on the roof – a component still under study.

The building features glass walls and a multi-angled roof set in a square opposite the 20,850-square-metre student accommodation building.

Francis-Luc Perret, EPFL vice-president for logistics, said the conference centre provides facilities that are badly needed on the campus.

“It’s an important need,” Perret told Swisster.

“We have approximately 300 laboratories here and each one of them needs to hold a congress every five years,” he said. That translates into one congress every week, Perret said.

Currently, EPFL has rooms spread across the campus but no main facility to house scientific gatherings, he said.

One of the advantages of the modular design of the centre is that it will allow separate conferences to run “in parallel” at the same time, Perret added.

“It’s a very special type of infrastructure.”

The housing complex is to include 180 studio apartments along with larger suites with two, four, six and eight bedrooms, in addition to common kitchen and living room facilities.

In addition, businesses, restaurants and medical services will be housed in a 2,800-square-metre commercial area incorporated in the building, which is designed to meet the latest environmental standards for energy efficiency.

Underground parking for 289 vehicles is also planned as part of the complex, to be located on the northwest part of EPFL’s campus with access to the M1 metro.

The project, the latest of several construction projects at EPFL’s Ecublens campus, is being undertaken in partnership with HRS Real Estate SA.

HRS, based in Frauenfeld (Thurgau), will be managing the project and guaranteeing all associated costs and construction schedules, EPFL said.

César Vuadens, member of the management board of HRS, told Swisster the company plans to seek investors for the project once building approval is received in about two months.

The “mixed” nature of the project – including the residential and commercial components – makes it an interesting investment, said Vuadens.

“It is the biggest project currently in the greater Lausanne region,” he said.

Building the conference centre alone would have been difficult to finance in such a public-private partnership, Vuadens acknowledged.

Under the deal, EPFL will pay a rent for the buildings, guaranteeing a stream of revenue for HRS, while operating the buildings once they are complete.

Construction is expected to start this summer with completion of the facilities by 2012.

It is the second public-private partnership undertaken by HRS with EPFL, following the 150-million-franc Innovation Centre, an office complex on the campus financed by UBS.

EPFL said many international scientific groups have expressed an interest in holding conferences in Lausanne, including the international congress of electrochemistry, which is eying the Vaud capital for a meeting in September 2014.

In another private-partnership, the 100-million-franc Rolex Learning Centre, housing a library, cultural facilities, cafeterias and other facilities on the campus, is nearing completion.

With 7,100 students and staff of almost 2,900, the Lausanne institute is one of two federal universities devoted to scientific and technical studies in Switzerland.

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