Rik M

The architectural firm Aebi & Vincent SIA AG exists since 1996. the founders Bernhard Aebi and Pascal Vincent met in 1990, when they both worked in a Bernese architecture office. Since then, Aebi & Vincent has about forty employees divided between two offices in Berne and Geneva. The numerous competitions and projects won and successfully implemented in recent years are the best guarantee of their success. The mountain house located prominently at the top of Niesen received the "International Award of construction in the Alps", while the renovation of the very representative Parliament building has been recognized internationally and also in the press. From their origins, their training and their respective characters, Bernhard Aebi and Pascal Vincent are two very different personalities. Both think independently, but remain co-authors of all their accomplishments. This positively affects their work and provides material for critical discussions to enrich and develop their projects. This attitude and this requirement also create a framework conducive to the autonomy and empowerment of employees. For architects Aebi & Vincent, each project is a unique object approached with fresh eyes, and developed consciously and precisely based on the potential and history of the place. The situation is analyzed as thoroughly as the objective of the mandate, the needs of project manager and users. Aebi & Vincent projects are all of a long and intense development process. The design as well as construction, but also each decision, each intervention should ideally prevail with the same obviousness. In fact, everything down to the smallest details, is the result of reflection and visual design while the whole is also in a global and urbanistic vision. Particular attention is paid to the juxtaposition of spaces, whether interior, exterior or their interaction. The multiplicity and diversity of tasks that confront the architect Aebi & Vincent are impressive. The field of activities includes the construction of new housings in the Grand Saconnex and Pinchat in Carouge in the canton of Geneva, as well as a new detached house in Amiet-Strasse Herzogenbuchsee, Hochfeld school sanitation in Bern, and the renovation and expansion of the boarding school in Bern Rossfeld - a shelter and training for disabled children. They agree with the same motivation for the design of urban New free high school founded in Bolzano, and planning new centers of villages of Bönigen in Steffisburg. The headquarters of Valiant Bank, located in the center of the capital of the federal state, is also part of the list of their accomplishments, as well as developing a concept for the new urban district of 5,000 residents in Neugraben-Fischbek in the city of Hamburg. A typology for which architects Aebi & Vincent get excited: response to historical and architectural data linking states of the old and new, whether inside buildings, centers of villages or urban complexes. They respect the historical substance to the smallest details, they conduct research on materials and colors concepts, they restore, however, bring new clear and incisive accents, surprising, while remaining simple and responsive, without any concession to current fashion. This attitude, which is verified in an exemplary manner in the parliament building in Bern, is also sensitive, but naturally to quite a different level, in the renovation of the residence for elderly in Elfenau in Bern. Designed in 1928 by Otto Rudolf Salvisberg and Otto Brechbühl as a center for infants, it is viewed in Switzerland as an exemplary figure of the new architecture. Biography Bernhard Aebi, architect HTL SIA FSAI 1963 born in Langnau, Bern BE 1988 Degree in architecture from the Technischen Hochschule Burgdorf 1988-1996 collaborator in Atelier 5 in Bern Since 1996 office Aebi & Vincent Architekten SIA AG in Bern and Geneva with Pascal Vincent Pascal Vincent, architect EPF ETS SIA FSAI 1964 born in Geneva, Geneva GE 1989 Degree in architecture from the Eidgenössisch Technischen Hochschule in Lausanne 1990-1996 collaborator in Atelier 5 in Bern Since 1996 office Aebi & Vincent Architekten SIA AG in Bern and Geneva with Bernhard Aebi