Located on the periphery of the University of Lausanne, the Vortex will house nearly 1,000 students and academic guests by the end of this summer. This iconic building was financed by the Caisse de pensions de l’Etat de Vaud and built by Losinger Marazzi, with IttenBrechbühl as an architectural director. The Vortex already welcomed the 1,800 athletes taking part in the Youth Olympic Games at Lausanne from 9 to 22 January 2020. «As soon as the client confirmed the contract placement, planning went into top gear and coordination was highly focused. We had 900 days to build 900 rooms.» (Guillaume Schobinger, project manager at IttenBrechbühl). Hosting the Youth Olympic Games gave a tremendous boost to the construction of this student accommodation facility.

The Vortex was a key selling point in the City of Lausanne’s bid to host the Games. Once the Olympic athletes had taken up residence in the Vortex last January, they were all gathered together on one single site for the first time in the history of the Games. The building’s unusual layout encouraged the various national teams to mingle with one another as athletes took advantage of the 2.8-kilometer spiral walkway to train on-site. In March, in response to the crisis linked to COVID-19, the Vortex complex was quickly made available by the Caisse de Pensions de l'Etat de Vaud to house medical personnel.