Client: HES-SO Valais-Wallis

Location: Brig-Glis, Switzerland

Date: 2024

Type: Education

Area: 9549m2

Budget: CHF 58 million

AZPML

Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Ivaylo Nachev

Walter Bieler AG

Enrico Fromm

Amstein + Walthert

Dirk Bandemer

Site and Open Space Concept

The building has been located on the North side of the available site, as a compact mass that frees the ground on the South side to establish a consistent band of public space as an extension of the Hospital Plaza, from which public access both the Hospital and the New Campus Extension. The new building is a “rounded rectangle” plan which smooths the flows around it to increase the pedestrian permeability through the site.

In order to free the land on the South of the building, we propose to have the parking sunken down to the level of the new Hospital basement parking. We have concentrated the access route into the new hospital parking facilities on the South side of the site, so that we can provide a large open lawn in front of the new building’s entrance. However, the new lawn will be topographically connected to the Hospital Plaza, becoming a single landscape element bridging between both levels. +669,50 and +674,50. The future Hospital Plaza will be extended to the West, to become a “carpet” in front of both buildings, bridging the 5m difference between them. And returning the public space to the natural ground at +669,50.

Building Concept

The building has three primary ambitions:

1. To provide connectivity across all departments to enhance synergy between them.

2. To create maximum flexibility so that the building can accommodate programmatic changes in the future.

3. To achieve maximum sustainability through the compactness of the building mass and the adoption of a low-carbon materiality: timber.

The building has been designed as a very compact, single mass, organized around a central atrium which will provide visual and physical connectivity between the different departments, while acting as a thermal regulator and air-circulation inducer. In the summer, the atrium will act as a natural ventilation engine, making the air move upwards through buoyancy while extracting the air from the rooms naturally. In the winter it will act as a thermal buffer where the air will be naturally heated by greenhouse effects.

A helicoidal stair in the atrium will create a central feature linking physically all floors.

Program Distribution

The required program has been hosted in six levels with 4m floor-to-ceiling height for maximum flexibility, except for the offices on the top level which have a 3m head clearance. Every floor provides approximately 1,450m2 of net area for use, excluding circulation and construction. The distribution of the required program has been done to locate the most public programs, or those that require the largest attendance, as closer to the ground as possible, while keeping the offices and specialized programs toward the top.

However, the similarity between the different floors and the structure-free floors will enable virtually any reconfiguration of the program in the future.

Structural Concept

The structure of the building is aimed to reduce embodied energy and carbon emissions to a minimum while preserving the flexibility of the structure for future use.

The building is proposed to be built mostly in timber, but the long spans will require punctually the use:

– Slabs will be spanning 7,20m and will be built with 100mm CLT boards supported on laminated timber joists of 200 x 480mm bolted to work as a structural unit. A layer of sand ballast and a layer of acoustic damper will be covered by 80mm in situ concrete layer where underfloor radiant heating pipes and electricity supply ducts are cast.

– These slabs are supported on HEB-450 S55 steel profiles which span 11,40m across the program bay. The steel beams will be supported on laminated timber columns 480x480mm.

– Two vertical concrete cores with a wall thickness of 300mm will provide lateral stability to the structure.

Material Concept: Sustainable Construction and Cost-effectiveness

The construction system has been conceived to minimize carbon emissions and energy consumption and is based on the principle of “design for disassembly”, where the building resources are made available for reuse after the buildings’ life cycle.

We have used three main strategies at this effect:

1. The building is mostly built with timber, which is a carbon trap, so the carbon footprint of the building will be negative. By using primarily wood as a construction material, we can reduce substantially the buildings’ weight, but also to minimize the energy used in the construction phase. As wood is in itself a good insulator, it will also contribute to reduce energy losses during the building’s operation.

2. The building will be mostly prefabricated so the embodied energy in the construction can be minimized, and the construction costs reduced to a minimum. A modular, symmetrical and repetitive design will ensure that the construction period is reduced, that the construction waste is minimized and that the building can be disassembled at the end of its lifecycle, making the material resources of the building available for reuse.

3. The building will have the highest insulation levels and airtightness. Combined with the high compactness and low façade and fenestration ratios of the massing, the use of timber and prefabrication systems is the best strategy to minimize heat loss and air leakage. The fenestration ratio has been set below 50% and triple glazing is specified for all glazed surfaces. The facades will also be built mostly with wood, using prefabricated modules for maximum airtightness and economy.

The facades will be insulated with a 180mm layer of cellulose insulation contained with fibre board panels and waterproofing. The solid areas on every level are covered with eaves on every floor, to shield the facade from solar radiation and wind-driven rain, while holding solar tiles toward the sky. These eaves are designed with a structure of corbels, will be integrally built in wood.