Innovation is the key to 3XN and Itten+Brechbühl's new mass timber campus expansion in Switzerland

2022-08-18T09:00:00-04:00

A little more than 30 years after its opening in 1991, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Innovation Park in Ecublens, Switzerland, has announced a major campus expansion effort to be spearheaded by 3XN and the local studio Itten+Brechbühl (IB).

Their new masterplan, named Ecotype, includes 10 new mass timber structures and a smattering of biophilia-lined greenspaces that will gradually double the size of the entrepreneurial-oriented EPFL’s campus over the course of a ten-year timeframe. According to 3XN’s Jan Ammundsen, "Ecotope will be a campus that facilitates and generates disruptive innovative solutions by being the interface between EPFL and society at large."

Image render courtesy of 3XN.

The project is being undertaken in order to ensure that the 30 or so startups the Innovation Park produces annually will provide the physical spaces needed to thrive. The innovation park will be developed around six core "principles" of biophilia – "serendipity, modularity, ...

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Innovation is the key to 3XN and Itten+Brechbühl's new mass timber campus expansion in Switzerland