Open Call: BIS Site development

ABSTRACT

The Bank for International Settlements, situated in the heart of Basel and in the centre of Europe, acts as a regular forum for meetings of its constituency of central bankers, financial regulators and supervisory authorities. Over the last decades, the BIS has extended its presence in Basel as its activities have grown. This expansion has been accommodated over the last decades through the acquisition of premises in close proximity to the Tower. 

The current facilities are concentrated in two major locations in Basel, the Tower site and the site of the Botta building. With the exception of the Tower building, the buildings on the Tower site are aging and inefficient or cannot be used at all, requiring the Bank to rebuild at some stage. Therefore, to ensure sufficient flexibility to meet demands over the coming decades, the Bank is looking to modernise its current facilities to support new ways of working and bring all its Basel-based staff into one location to foster collaboration.

The project study will consider two different phases with the main focus on the first stage in the development of the future building extension, the “New Development”. The BIS envisages a possible further building extension at a later stage, the “Second-stage Development”.

The masterplan, which was approved in 2015, enables the BIS to realise on the site around and including the existing Tower building an overall of 68,000 m² gross floor area (BGF) above ground in order to consolidate the entire BIS staff from all facilities in Basel in one place.

Within both the constraints regarding the extension of the facilities and the implementation of the new masterplan in two stages, the BIS has initiated this project study in order to seek the most suitable project for the future home of the BIS in Basel.

Download of the pre-qualification documents and application is possible through the project study homepage www.bis-campus.org.

TIMELINE

• 21.06.-25.06.2021 – Public announcement of BIS project study and distribution of pre-qualification brief
• 26.07.2021 – Submission of questions, 14:00 at the latest
• 06.08.2021 – Submission of pre-qualification documents, 24:00 at the latest
• 24.08.2021 – Selection of the participants
• 14.09.2021 – Notice of results of pre-qualification to participants
• 20.09.2021 – Distribution of project study brief
• 18./19.01.2022 – Intermediate presentation
• 08.04.2022 – Submission of plans and required information
• 24./25.05.2022 – Final presentation 
• July 2022 – Notice of the project study results to participants

EVALUATION PANEL

Architectural jury members (external members)

• Sacha Menz (chairperson) – architect based in Zurich and professor at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)

• Beat Aeberhard – Head of Urban Development and Architecture of the Canton of Basel-Stadt

• Christophe Girot – landscape architect based in Zurich and professor at ETH Zurich

• Louisa Hutton – architect based in Berlin and former lecturer/visiting professor at Architectural Association in London and Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts

• Vittorio Lampugnani – architect based in Milan and professor emeritus at ETH Zurich

• Débora Mesa Molina – architect based in Madrid and Boston and lecturer at the School of Architecture of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta

Non-architectural jury members (members from the contracting authority)

• Thomas Jordan, member of the BIS Board of Directors and the Board's Administrative Committee, Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank

• Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva – Deputy General Manager, BIS

• Monica Ellis – Secretary General and Head of General Secretariat, BIS

• Bertrand Legros – Deputy Secretary General, BIS

• Véronique Neiss – Head of Real Estate and Facility Management, BIS

AWARDS

80’000 CHF for each participant who submitted a valid project study and made all presentations 

CONTACT DETAILS

Further information is provided via the pre-qualification documents, which can be downloaded from the project study homepage www.bis-campus.org. 

Submission of the pre-qualification documents via project study homepage (electronically only) until 06 August 2021, 24:00 at the latest.