Initiated by an international competition, the project follows the decision to double passenger traffic in the station by 2030. It responds to the ambition to endow Lausanne with public spaces worthy of the city of Lausanne and its current projects (notably the future museum cluster). The project magnifies the geography of Lausanne as a city-landscape and firmly anchors the station-site in its topographic structure.

The Place de la Gare comes to reclaim a vacant and available space in the city, conducive to the use of a variety of scales, be they every-day or exceptional. Running along the levels’ curves and taking advantage of the existing substantial crossing slope, the project exploits the works necessary for the fundamental reorganisation of the station, to build a new horizontality, at once powerful, stable and comfortable. A genuine city lung, two large ledges, which are generous and favourable to appropriations, alternate with the gently sloping ramp and step positions, which form the new threshold of the station.