Tribunal Arbitral du Sport (TAS) | RDR architectes

In 2000, the Fondation de Beaulieu, the site's owner, launched a renovation programme entitled Beaulieu 2020 with the aim of enabling the site to once again become a major economic, cultural and academic centre for the city.

 In 2014, the rejection in a referendum of the construction of a 27-storey tower led to a reorientation of the strategy for the occupation and development of the site. New uses are being considered, such as the development of a training centre for the Haute École de la Santé La Source in the 1920 hall, which will be carried out between 2015 and 2018 by RDR architects.

As part of this new planning, it is planned to accommodate the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on the top two floors and an attic in the south wing of the Palais, with the lower levels reserved for a restaurant and other uses for the Palais de Beaulieu.

 Since its creation in Lausanne in 1984, the CAS has always rented its offices, first near the Olympic Museum, then at the Château de Béthusy, also in Lausanne. The acquisition by the International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS) of the south wing of the Palais de Beaulieu provides it with a location that is in line with the expansion of its activities, the development of its role and the growth of its needs, and ensures its future development and international influence. Thus, in 2016, the CAS launched a parallel study mandate (PSM) for the study and realisation of its new headquarters in the Palais de Beaulieu. Based on a feasibility study, the competition specifications detail the CAS's needs in terms of functions and premises, and propose a layout for the latter in the building.

The premises programme includes a range of workspaces: offices, archives, conference rooms, a library and a cafeteria, as well as public spaces specific to the activity of the CAS: a 100-seat auditorium, courtrooms of different sizes, and all the ancillary premises necessary for the functioning of the Court.

The occupation plan in the specifications proposes locating the public programme of courtrooms on the first floor, and the administrative sector on the second floor and in a penthouse to be built.

 In addition to the usual and foreseeable requirements for this type of competition - the search for architectural excellence and exemplarity in environmental and energy terms, the specifications detail specific constraints for the incorporation of the new programme into the Palais de Beaulieu: integration into a building with a high heritage and historical value, sharing an evacuation route with the Theatre, and the differentiated management of flows specific to a court of this type.

 Between tradition and modernity, the challenges of the project

 Two main challenges underlie the project for the new CAS headquarters. The creation of new headquarters represents an important historic step for the CAS. The project must provide the institution with an efficient working tool, adapted to its needs, to current requirements and to the specific nature of its activity, as well as a representative working environment that expresses its identity, status and values. For the CAS, occupying the Palais de Beaulieu is an opportunity (a new vision for the Beaulieu site) but also represents the possibility of investing in a building whose historic architecture lends itself well to the solemnity of a court of international standing.

 In addition, the project must be appropriately integrated into a building of recognised heritage value - the Palais de Beaulieu is listed as a Historic Monument of Regional Interest, a building that occupies an important place in the collective memory of French-speaking Switzerland, having been home to the Swiss Bank for many years.

In its conclusions, the historical study notes that ‘the most important element of the Palais, the one that gives it its identity and unity, is obviously the façade designed in the early 1930s. At the time of its conception, the architect composed a modern façade whose distinctive feature is the large glass windows that occupy the entire height of the façade’.

The design of the façade itself must be associated with the volumetric expression of the Palace, with its pre-eminent central body and two lower, almost symmetrical wings, which give it its classical monumentality. The treatment of the façades of the Palace is therefore one of the key elements of the project in terms of heritage.

 The RDR project, historical significance and novelty

Architecture and programme, the importance of making the right choices

The project developed by RDR architects, winner of the MEP, proposes an innovation compared to the feasibility study. The location of the public and administrative programmes is reversed: the offices are located on the 1st and 2nd floors, while the public and representative functions specific to the CAS are symbolically placed in the attic, giving them visibility and a privileged location, benefiting from the view of the Lake Geneva landscape, the lake and its mountains.

This alternative distribution of the programme makes it possible to better respond to the structural constraints linked to the existing, and to give the major public spaces a height in keeping with their size and representativeness, but also and above all to better express the identity of an institution such as the CAS.

The new organisation ultimately leads to a better coherence between programme, architectural expression and image.

 The CAS occupies a long strip (82m x 24m) located at the southern end of the Palais along Avenue des Bergières, bordered to the north by the Theatre. In response to the particular shape of the available building, the project proposes to divide the space schematically into three parts lengthwise. Along the façade, individual offices are located on floors 1 and 2, and courtrooms are located on the attic floor; along the dividing wall with the theatre are the service rooms and a few caucus rooms. The central strip accommodates an atrium topped by a glass roof that brings natural light right into the heart of the building. This central integrating space connects and distributes the three levels. It accommodates staircases as well as meeting rooms, and on the first floor the library and its consultation area.

 A new attic space has been added to the south wing. This houses the rooms used for hearings: a 100-seat auditorium, two courtrooms with around 30 seats each, with their respective translation rooms, a spacious foyer, as well as caucus rooms and the referees' room. The offices of the CAS management are located at the western end.The vertical circulation cores (stairs and lifts) are located at both ends of the complex, with the stairs to the east also serving as an escape route for the theatre. The programme is completed by a second penthouse set back from the main building, which houses the cafeteria and a sports hall.

 The façade, adjustment and continuity

 As the historical study points out, the most important element of the Palace, the one that gives it its identity and deserves to be preserved, is its façade. During the project, the treatment of the large windows that make it up was the subject of an in-depth study under the watchful eye of the municipal heritage protection services. The proposal for detached sections in front of the windows aims to emphasise the vertical and monumental proportion of the openings and to restore their tripartite division, already present in the original façades. The creation of a foreground helps to unify the variations and breaks in the horizontal rhythm resulting from the diversity of the functions housed by the building.

 The architectural treatment of the attic is characterised by an entirely glazed façade, the eaves of which emphasise its lightness. Its horizontality crowns the mineral façade of the Palais de Beaulieu, offering the reading of a unitary classical composition, while allowing the distinction of an emergence suggesting a specific programme.

Materiality, tradition and modernity

The choice of materials reflects the desire to express the Institution's values of rigour, efficiency and transparency, and to favour a contemporary response that respects the particular historical character of the Palais de Beaulieu, and whose modernity does not exclude a certain classicism. The use of natural materials is favoured: concrete, wood, aluminium and brass – a nod to the historic interior design of the Palais de Beaulieu, in a contemporary and rigorous implementation, with sophistication but without ostentation.

RDR's support for this project also extended to the choice of furniture and the development of a graphic identity deployed in particular in the signage elements.