The WHO headquarter stands on the heights of Geneva, the municipal boundary of Prégny-Chambésy and Grand Saconnex, in the neighborhood of international organizations near Geneva-Cointrin Airport. Today it consists of ten buildings of very disparate quality. After 58 years on the current site of its headquarters in Geneva, WHO has undertaken an extensive renovation project. The purpose of the competition is to build a new building in which the staff will be transferred during the renovation, without disruption to the staff and operations of WHO.
The client owned a 35 sqm flat downtown Geneva , Swiss, that she wanted to refurbish anew. The commission to Fre aks was to manage the largest living space possible within a pretty tricky and constraining existing setting.
I’d like a massive house, safe and fragrant like my childhood. I will make you a sheltered house like the ones I love.” It is through an on going conversation between the architect and client that the realisation of this house was achieved. On an exceptional site, along the edge of the centre of Geneva, this white house, with its pure geometry, is a part in itself. If the square plan is the basis for its composition, it surprises through its malleability and functional complexity.
This sauna is a small levitating house, moored on the roof of an old factory to experiment dry heat sessions with a view on the poplars. At reasonable temperature, it also makes a perfect writing room. It was built as a DIY community project for L-sud association in the old Kugler factory in the center of Geneva.
The project is a process that starts from a scenario initiated by the various constraints of the site and the program, and which evolves positively thanks to the landscape observation, the place use,… It appears essential for us to think the place and the building like an inseparable combination.
The Coral house is located in the Chandieu area, formed by a large urban block surrounded by Rue Giuseppe-Motta, Grand-Pré and Chandieu. The site is accessible by the main road Grand-Pré, this avenue lined with trees, cuts straight though the building block. The future underground parking will be accessible by the entrance of the adjacent building, the Azure center, located on the Grand-Pré road.
Front View (Images Courtesy Régis Golay, FEDERAL Studio)
The owner commissioned SAOTA to design his Geneva base for his family home and office. Passionate about design and architecture, this is the 4th home SAOTA have undertaken for him. The others, in Cape Town and Paris and one in Senegal are manifest statements of exciting, even provocative contemporary architecture.
Sow Geneva - Photo by Stefan Antoni
Architect: SAOTA (Stefan Antoni Olmesdahl Truen Architects) with SRA Kössler & Morel Architects
Project: Sow Geneva
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Project team (SAOTA): Stefan Antoni, Greg Truen & Juliet Kavishe
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