Bertola is a swiss architecture firm based in Crisser (Lausanne).

Its objective is to design quality contemporary architecture adapted to the current objectives of our society on social and environmental issues. It diversifies on different themes, programs and architectonic scale.

Housing remains one of the most important themes in the history of architecture and has been the main theme of the architectural firm Bertola & Cie since its creation.

The theme of housing at Bertola & Cie has diversified in several urban forms, from the individual villa, dominant from the 60s to the 80s, through grouped or contiguous dwellings, to collective housing or the development of entire neighborhoods. The post-modernist projects of the 1960s and 1970s led to a research and definition of the basic needs of users and residents. The salubrity of the dwellings becomes a concern of the office during this period. The work focuses on the rationalization of the plan designed as a "housing cell", on functional optimization, study of natural ventilation, constructive rationalization and sunlight. This systematic system sets up highly structured facades on bar-shaped buildings on the model of Le Corbusier's housing unit. The works of this period are compared, optimized to the maximum and standardized; this is the period of the publication of the first edition of Ernst Neufert's "Elements of Building Projects". The period from 1980-1990 focuses on urban integration approaches linked to the constraints of municipal regulations. Renovations or small works then become more important. The houses were designed in a style that could be described as a typical "villa vaudoise", devoid of any ornament. The advent of computer technology in the 1990s changed the design process for projects. This period remains poor in quality and quantity of architectural objects mainly because of the crisis of the 90s. From 2000 to the present day, we are witnessing the emergence of new tools for projecting by computer science. The plans are freer despite their distribution in day/night space. Partitions are coming down, like the opening of the laboratory kitchen in the 70's in the day space. It even becomes conventional that the "living" kitchen is the most important space in the apartment. There is a new ambivalence between the day spaces (kitchen, living room, dining room). The balcony becomes a real inhabited space, more and more privileged. Since the 2000s new concerns have emerged such as densification, energy saving and ecology. The building envelope is changing technologically and evolving radically, while also presenting concerns about how to live in society with new typologies of apartments.