Grimshaw wins University of Bern masterplan competition

Grimshaw Architects has won a design competition to masterplan the redevelopment of the University of Bern’s Muesmatt campus, near the Swiss city’s medieval Unesco World Heritage Site old town.

The practice beat 25 other shortlisted teams bidding for the project and will work with local practice Archipel Generalplanung and Land Suisse Sagl to “open up” the quarter, re-establishing street and visual connections and enhancing public spaces in the process.

But the project has already been put on ice for five years by the regional council which said it had to prioritise investment in building stock.

该大学在一份声明中表示:“因此，根据优先次序，第一阶段的建设将在2031年开始。比赛结果将会确定并保存。”

The University of Bern’s vision for the campus includes a mix of demolition, rebuilding and sensitive adaptation of existing listed buildings – including research facilities and laboratories – to deliver a multi-disciplinary science cluster for the institution.

Grimshaw said the project’s new structures would “create an environment that responds to, and unites” Muesmatt’s existing heritage buildings, which date from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century and include work by Swiss architect Otto Rudolf Salvisberg.

Under the plans, Gertrud-Woker-Strasse will be turned into a pedestrianised “green axis” that forms the backbone of the masterplan and connects to a new six-floor natural sciences building by the Zurich office of Gunz & Künzle Architekten. Both the masterplan and the natural sciences building were part of the competition.

Grimshaw的设计方案将在圣保罗教堂前创建一个新的社区中心广场，而一系列带有庭院和绿色空间的低尺度建筑将被引入校园的南部。

The practice said a “green belt” would surround the campus, providing a “permeable connection to the city”.

It added: “The new buildings of the second phase will also further define the green axis of the area and create a framework for a network of car-free paths, simplifying routes and connections to neighbouring university buildings.”