Located at Rue Caroline 23, at the edge of the Promenade de la Solitude in Lausanne, the
project reinterprets an existing modernist tower rising next to the old town of Lausanne.
The proposal originates from the tension between the public and the erotic worlds, juxtaposing
two apparently incompatible programs: an office and a love hotel. Conceived as a heterotopia,
the project preserves the building’s existing structure while subtly destabilising its logic
through minimal yet precise interventions. Two overlapping floor plans, one for the office and
one for the love hotel, reveal how radically different programs can coexist simultaneously, as
changes in circulation, thresholds, reflections, and visibility generate entirely different spatial
experiences within the same structure.
The main intervention is the addition of a second staircase, mirrored to the existing one at the
core of the tower. This simple gesture immediately transforms the rules of use within the
building, creating two realities that almost never touch. While the exterior remains intentionally
generic and unchanged, the interior gradually reveals a sequence of carefully designed tensions, where boundaries blur and glimpses into the parallel reality become possible.
Nature plays a fundamental role within this narrative: the existing park becomes the threshold
into the love hotel through an existing bridge, while the top of the tower is transformed into a
greenhouse filled with exotic vegetation, a space where office workers and hotel guests may
finally encounter one another