ECAL School of Art

Built in and around a former factory that housed IRIL, a knitwear company that produced stockings and other clothing, the new design entirely transforms the exsiting 1950s-era structure- an enormous four-story building with floor plates as large as a football field. In order to bring sunlight into the new school, four slender atria or light wells are carved into the existing structure, distributing natural light throughout the building. A two-hundred-foot-long exhibition hall on the ground floor, punctuated by light wells and exposed stairs, provides circulation and divides the space into both large and intimate areas for study, work, and creative expression. A pattern of primacy colors helps identify interior spaces, and unifies the interior spaces with the exterior. A variety of metal meshes and corrugated steel cover the existing factory structure, including a signature waving screen over the entire length of the entrance façade. The color strategy, revealed in thin bands on the exterior, reflects the building’s significance for the community as a civic hub, echoing the site’s former role as the economic heart of the neighborhood.

ECAL occupies two thirds of the space, while the remaining areas are shared by the architecture school of the Lausanne Polytechnic Institute, the ECAL Art Gallery, and workshops dedicated to local artists-in-residence and studios for emerging technologies.