Rolex Learning Center by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa

Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, responsible for the study SANAA, designed the newly opened Rolex Learning Center for the Federal Polytechnical School of Lausanne (EPFL). An impressive building that wants to make organic forms with living human beings and their natural motion.
They won the project competition and ousted by Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and Jean Nouvel. They have designed a building worthy of all honors. In the words of the architects: “We wanted the building to be floating, yet rooted in the soil, roots, and to offer multiple relationships with users and the environment. And that would be open to people with multiple logins.
Constructed of concrete, the building stands silent on the campus of the EPFL, as if the 88,000 meters square did not want to bother the Swiss landscape around him: Lake Geneva and the Alps in the background. The Rolex Learning Center is all designed so that students and visitors can enjoy views of the mountains on the horizon and the natural light, which pervades all interior spaces.
The rectangular, construction rises gently rolling hills, folds and sinuous shapes based on natural movements of man. Its organic shape is not just an aesthetic reason, but also contributes to a continuous flow of people visiting the center, walls and stairs have been replaced by ramps and gentle slopes gently to organize traffic within the building. The whole interior is designed as a single open space, with surprisingly few pillars of the large size lightweight construction.
The Rolex Learning Center is a cultural center for students and visitors from outside the college. Includes a library with more than half a million books, study spaces, social meeting areas, restaurants, cafes and a beautiful outdoor space.