HHF Architects & Westpol Win Competition to Design Apartment Tower and Public Space in Switzerland

HHF Architects & Westpol Win Competition to Design Apartment Tower and Public Space in Switzerland

Swiss architecture firm HHF Architects, in collaboration with Westpol Landscape Architecture, wins an invited competition to design a 30-meter-high apartment tower and an adjacent green public space for the community of Biel town. The tower will be the starting point for the new park-like passage to Rue du Moulin.

HHF Architects’ winning entry ‘Jardin Métropole’ is aimed to be a defining landmark for the Swiss town. It is composed of a unique shaped tower formed by three cube-like masses of different sizes and orientations adjoined by a public space. The shapes and angles of the tower’s masses are based on the surrounding buildings. The public ground floor of the tower has a round shape, resembling Biel’s well-known “La Rotonde” at the town’s train station. The tower’s design carries the theme of the “city garden,” where each apartment has an access to a green space: separate private gardens, a shared roof terrace, or landscaped loggias.

The “loft-like façade” is enveloped in horizontal ribbon windows and photovoltaic modules. The photovoltaic cells will generate a large fraction of the energy to operate the residential apartments and the commercial section, located on the ground and first floors, of the tower. Finally, the construction works for the project will begin in 2019.