Visitor Centre at the Swiss Ornithological Insitute
The new Visitor Centre at the Swiss Ornithological Institute has been built on the banks of Sempachersee. Its function is to provide the public with more information about the work of the Ornithological Institute and about bird life in Switzerland.
A dynamic network of routes guides visitors through the exhibition and the entire lakeside site. The compact, polygon structures have been positioned so that they interact with the countryside and the lake.
One part of the building houses the extremely flexible exhibition hall. The area between the buildings has been made into a spacious foyer, from where there is access to all parts of the exhibition. The showcase aviary at the end of the foyer offers a gradual, fleeting transition between the inside and outside worlds.
The building’s self-supporting outer shell is comprised of solid walls made of rammed earth. With the addition of simple timber constructions, they give the Visitor Centre, which satisfies the “Minergie-P-eco” standard, its charac- teristic appearance and do justice to the sustainability concept.
