The building complex is located on the Broye’s plain. It is an independent enclosed system, a cluster of buildings. An orthogonal network of service roads, canals and windbreaker strips structures the site. The directional system was plotted with the axes of access and the building structure and surrounded by an artificially mutated landscape. The landscape is dominated by an artificial created moorland (300m long) that runs parallel to the circulation. Designed by the architects J.Zweifel and H.Strickler and built from 1967 to 1970 the buildings are laid out in a carpet-type one-storey reinforced concrete system. As a witness of the Brutalist period the appearance of the buildings embodies this typical characteristic: a structure entirely exposed and the valuation of raw materials.
The studio will examine the programmatic and spatial reorganization of the former Agricultural Research Centre in St. Aubin, Fribourg. Dealing with the building complex the studio will focus on different levels of reuse, regarding the image of architecture, the program, the material, the construction and the urban structure. Starting with inventory and analysis of the existing building complex we will deal with its programmatic and spatial reorganisation. The studio will also scan for reusable elements of the building complex to be part of a new 1:1 project in the second semester.
