Award for a project conducted at the LAST
Medical hotel at the place de l’Ours © EPFL / PDM Benoît Meylan
The work of Benoit Meylan, carried out at the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST), has been distinguished by one of the Best theoretical statement Prizes, which was awarded to him during the recent Master's degree graduation ceremony 2022. His work focuses on the development and analysis of emergency medical structures in pandemic situations.
The shock of the recent pandemic has highlighted the pressure that can suddenly be placed on existing medical structures. Some countries have proven to be better prepared than others, depending on their resources and experiences. They also stood out by different response capabilities in terms of structure, organization, and personnel. Depending on their scale and nature, the structures developed to respond to the emergency of the situation present great variations at the spatial level.
In this context, Benoit Meylan's theoretical statement aims to establish a typological analysis of the different structures that can support hospitals during a pandemic emergency. This groundbreaking work is based on the study of a body of examples adopted simultaneously in different countries during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2020.
By approaching these issues from a spatial perspective, Benoit Meylan's work highlights the partially satisfactory responses of current models. It hypothesizes that a new approach could be developed around the concept of the medical hotel. The master project then explored the stakes of such an approach by proposing a transformation of the Hôtel de l'Ours in Lausanne.
The follow-up group of this theoretical statement and master project consisted of Prof. Emmanuel Rey (supervisor, LAST), Adrien Verschuere (visiting professor, SAR), and Loïc Fumeaux (teaching assistant, LAST).