Location: Bellevue, Switzerland

Design Team: atelier ba.le

Area: 3,094 m²

Year: 2025

Photography: Maxime Delvaux

Design Features: Port Gitana Municipal Building and Hotel-Restaurant stands on the shore of Lake Geneva in Bellevue, Switzerland. Once part of Baroness de Rothschild's lakeside estate, the site remained separated from the village centre by the Route de Lausanne. Rather than compressing the 3,094 m² programme into a single large complex, atelier ba.le divides it between a civic building and an 18-room hotel-restaurant. The space between them becomes a new pedestrian passage from the village toward the park, harbour and water.

Two triangular volumes shape a shared forecourt while their slightly shifted orientations mark separate entrances. Their scale, pale surfaces and pitched roofs continue the fine grain of the surrounding village, while the lightness of timber bathhouses and boathouses informs their lakeside character. Moving between the buildings, visitors encounter trees, harbour and water in stages. The architecture's first gesture is therefore not an object, but a renewed public approach to the shore.

Split levels respond to the natural slope, and a shared basement connects the two buildings. In the civic house, the Salle du Lac opens to panoramic views of the lake and Alps, with facilities for the adjacent beach arranged below. On the hotel side, the restaurant meets the park and terrace directly, while guest rooms occupy the upper floors with balconies toward the water. Civic events, hospitality, dining and recreation remain distinct while sharing one topographic framework.

The exterior establishes a careful contrast between lightness and weight. Tapering timber cladding wraps the upper volumes and catches changing shadows, while a mineral base settles the buildings into the park and echoes existing stone walls. Along the lake, repeated columns, windows and balconies divide the broad landscape into measured views. Inside, pale timber, muted grey-green surfaces and deeper green rooms form a restrained backdrop to the changing light from the water.

Port Gitana does not treat the hotel as a retreat detached from local life. Together, the two houses create a new social centre for Bellevue: one accommodates meetings, exhibitions and community events, while the other offers dining and overnight stays, with the passage between them remaining open toward the harbour, park and beach. Its contemporary language sits between village roofs and lakeside bathhouses, allowing civic life, travel and the horizontal landscape of Lake Geneva to occupy the same everyday route.

Design Team: atelier ba.le was founded in Basel in 2020 by architects Robin Bader and Constance Leroy, both graduates of the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio. The practice emerged after the pair won first prize in the open competition for Port Gitana, making the lakeside ensemble both the studio's point of origin and its first major project carried from competition to completion.

Working bilingually in German and French, the office undertakes projects across both German- and French-speaking Switzerland and provides services from feasibility studies and competitions through design and construction. Its approach begins with close analysis of context and programme, using clear volumes, materials and routes to produce spaces fitted to their surroundings. At Port Gitana, this results not in an isolated landmark but in two approachable houses that reorganise the relationship between village life, civic activity and the lake.