Studio led by Philippe Rahm (Philippe Rahm Architectes)

Assisted by Valentin Calame (Studio Chaos)

In the fight against climate change, Swiss school buildings constructed from 1950 to the present day have gradually adapted to the cold (thermal insulation, controlled ventilation) to reduce their energy consumption and CO2 emissions accordingly. Unfortunately, we now see that the reality of climate change itself was not taken into account, namely the rising temperatures of the Swiss climate during the summer and more specifically at the start of the school year, which led to a crisis situation in August and September 2023.

Adapting our buildings in Switzerland to extreme heat has become a new challenge for exterior architecture; this requires rethinking the design of our facades, notably the entire solar protection system, the window ratio, the type of openings, and the ventilation system.

But isn’t it also time to rethink interior architecture? Can interior design provide temporary solutions, in an emergency, to this crisis situation? How can thermal inertia be integrated for nighttime summer cooling? Can we consider interior design in terms of albedo, evaporation, radiation, emissivity, and thermal effusivity? How can interior architecture, in an emergency, provide solutions and contribute to improving the thermal comfort of occupants?