A science centre that asks students to slide between floors is either a gimmick or a statement. At Institut Le Rosey, it’s unmistakably the latter. Philo, the newly completed science and innovation centre by Bernard Tschumi Architects in Rolle, near Geneva, brings that idea to life with an architectural precision that feels entirely intentional.
The building, which took shape between 2019 and 2025, sits on the campus of one of Switzerland’s most prestigious international boarding schools, right alongside Carnal Hall, the metal-domed music venue Tschumi completed for the same institution back in 2014. Where Carnal Hall curves inward with acoustic purpose, Philo opens up — a ring-shaped structure five storeys tall, wrapping itself around a grand central atrium that functions less like a corridor and more like a covered public square.
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That atrium is the building’s beating heart. Three concentric walkways surround it, and vertical and horizontal circulation paths cut through the space, generating constant movement. Helical slides thread through the interior alongside the sculptural spiral staircase, turning the everyday act of moving between floors into something worth doing. It sounds playful — and it is —, but it’s also deeply considered. Tschumi has spent decades arguing that architecture only comes alive through movement and event, and Philo reads like a direct translation of that thinking into built form.
The programme inside is built around student innovation. Philo houses a Fabrication Lab, a Start-up Incubator Space, and a Pitch Room — a flexible rectangular space that can be reconfigured for presentations or performances. Classrooms and laboratories fill the remaining floors, all oriented around the central void. The result is a building that doesn’t separate learning from making, or thinking from doing. Every space feels connected, both literally and conceptually.
Externally, the ring form gives Philo a strong presence on campus without overpowering it. The circular geometry creates a clear dialogue with Carnal Hall’s dome, establishing a coherent architectural language across two very different building types. Aerial photography by Iwan Baan captures just how deliberately the two structures have been positioned — companions on a campus that now has a genuine architectural identity.
Philo isn’t trying to reinvent education. What it does, with impressive restraint, is create the conditions for a different kind of learning — one built on movement, collision, and chance encounter. For a studio whose founder once wrote that there is no architecture without events, it’s a building that lives up to the theory.
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