The intricate Swiss ecosystem

SM: We really feel there’s an abundance of new offices right now. The number is striking, and I think it’s probably linked to the old building stock. A large proportion of them are between 40 and 50 years old, and with new regulations on energy and insulation, urban renovations are booming, creating work for many practices. That said, opening an office is now easier than before: you don’t need much physical infrastructure; you can even work as a nomad, which might have been more difficult in the past. 

SP: Another important aspect of the Swiss context is the level of trust companies place in young architects. When Sara arrived in Switzerland, she was surprised by how quickly she was trusted to take responsibility once she showed commitment. In her first experience in Lausanne, trust was immediate.

SM: I agree. There’s a respect for the profession here that you don’t often see in other countries, where the value of hiring an architect is sometimes overlooked. In Switzerland, there’s a strong building culture—people recognise that working with an architect adds value to their projects. That said, it’s not exactly the same in every canton. In this region, for example, the idea of seeing the added value of working with an architect is relatively new, but it is growing rapidly and bringing fresh opportunities. This may also explain why the architectural scene is emerging at a different pace compared to cities like Lausanne or Zurich.

SP: The open competitions also make it easier to start your own office, as does the favourable economic situation of the country, and the demographic growth. Switzerland is expanding rapidly, and the Valais region is currently the fastest-growing region in Switzerland. That creates a strong demand for housing renovations, new constructions, schools, and so on. Many school buildings are undersized, and they have to be expanded. In some areas, new ones have been built because of the growing population.

SM: Some regions are experiencing a significant boom, while others are losing people. So in terms of planning public infrastructure, it’s really complex—especially for investment decisions.

A field of challenges and opportunities

SP: Our work has gradually found a direction over time. We have quite a long list of projects—right now, buildings and transformations. Over time, we slowly started to specialise. It wasn’t really planned, but we ended up focusing on the transformation of historical buildings, and now we have quite a few projects in that field. We won a competition last year to transform a historical town hall. There are many opportunities for transformation in the region, particularly because most of the buildings were built in the 70s. People and the canton invested heavily in construction during the 20th century, and now, with new regulations and the push to decarbonise, this field holds significant potential for new opportunities.

Also, it's a very touristic region, so there’s a demand for transforming old rural buildings into second or vacation homes. Additionally, this canton is a bit behind in terms of new buildings and public infrastructure. There's a lot of pressure to catch up with the rest of the country. The context is tricky, though. All the easy-to-build land in the Rhone Valley is already developed. Now, the land that remains is more complicated, often with difficult topographies. So, a lot of work is needed to figure out how to deal with slopes and terrain. That’s where architects are needed, particularly those with the creativity to manage geometry complexity and context constraints.

SM: Another opportunity that will come soon, but isn’t here yet, is densification. In this area, development has historically been with single housing buildings on large parcels—often built on land that used to be vineyards or fruit orchards. These parcels were cheaper back then, and the urban planning wasn’t focused on density. Now, however, they’re obligated to concentrate development and limit the territory. So, they’ll have to find new ways to densify these urban areas made up of little houses. It’s an interesting situation because we don’t yet know how the cities in this canton will evolve. The urban areas are very heterogeneous. So, there will certainly be housing projects, but we don’t know yet how they’re going to approach it.

SP: Exactly. For example, the culture of collective housing—which has been common in Zurich, for example, and has been part of their competitions for years—is not really present here. The development of collective housing here is mostly in the hands of private construction companies, so I have the feeling there isn’t a lot of opportunity for architects in that field.

SM: Economic changes have produced demographic shifts. Many valleys here have also become unstable, and maintaining roads, slopes, and infrastructure in those areas is costly. As a result, people are relocating to the plains. The cities along the Rhone are going to grow a lot in the coming years, and that will change everything. The way people live, transportation, public services—everything will change. In this canton, I think there are many territorial challenges that you don’t see in more urban cantons. It’s a rural canton transforming into something more urban. There are many things to think about in the next few years, as everything is changing quickly.

A fortuitous meeting

SP: I’m from this region, while Sara is originally from Spain. We met in Madrid in 2008, right after I had completed my bachelor’s. I was looking for job opportunities there, even though it was the worst period for architecture—the global economic crisis had hit Spain harder than many other countries. While most architects in Spain were moving abroad, often to Switzerland, I went in the opposite direction and pursued opportunities in Madrid. I ended up working at Herzog & de Meuron, which was an incredible experience. I had the chance to work in a Swiss office with many Spanish colleagues, and I was really impressed by the quality of Spanish architects, I realised how demanding Spanish universities were.  

I worked at the office with Sara, later, she had the opportunity to work in Lausanne. That’s when we decided to move back together to Switzerland. After finishing my master’s, I started my practice, Le Repaire Fantastique, with Giona Bierens de Haan and Laurent Chassot. For a few years, we mainly worked on small-scale projects, focusing on scenography for artists and creating our own objects. Then, I lost my father. He had a house in the vineyards and we decided to take on its renovation, and with the birth of our first son, we moved there in an attempt to refresh the home’s spirit.  

SM: So, we said, "Let’s give it a try." We love the mountains and have a close relationship with nature, so we decided to see if it was possible to develop something here in Martigny. That was in 2017, and that’s the reason why we ended up in Valais: after Madrid, and Lausanne, life brought us here. I also had the opportunity to work with the architecture studio GAME, where they gave me the chance to lead the construction of a school in Chamoson. But after a few years, Simon thought, “Maybe it’s time to try self-employed again.”

SP: I started with a few opportunities to work on projects, and suddenly I had too much work. I didn’t want to hire another architect, since I already had a great one right next to me. And so, we decided to join forces under the name lablab. 

SM: lablab is also a seed. We didn’t want to use our own names, and we thought it was more fitting to call it something like a laboratory—a space for experimentation. Simon has an environmental engineering background, and his father was a famous biologist, so he has a special relationship with nature. We thought the name was special, symbolises something that could grow—like a plant—and that’s the story behind our practice.

A language of shared principles

SM: Starting an office means working with the opportunities you have around you. In this region, there are many people wanting to build their own homes—mainly single-family. It’s more interesting to work with collective housing, but here that’s more limited. Most practices here start by building houses for private clients. Still, in each project, we try to be conscious of resource usage. We have an ecological consciousness, so we always try to work with people who share that sensitivity. We can have a common discussion in that way. We focus on small-scale changes with broader impact, though from the start we’ve sought to work across different scales. After winning a competition in 2024 to renovate a town hall, we’re now working on a school project—an exciting shift, since applying our principles is often harder in private housing, where personal dreams leave less room for experimentation.

SP: Sara and I share a common vision grounded in principles we’ve been cultivating over years of collaboration. We never had to discuss much about what we wanted for the office—our direction was intuitively clear. Even before working under the name lablab, we had already had many chances to collaborate together. When I started my first office in Lausanne, Sara wasn’t formally involved, but we supported each other with our practices. We also worked together at Herzog & de Meuron. 

In a way, we didn’t need to define our path because we both instinctively knew it. We’ve always been drawn to experimenting with materials and approaching each project with fresh eyes. This is essential for us and ties into a broader ecological vision of architecture. One of our guiding principles is never to repeat ourselves—we want to provide the best response to each specific context. This curiosity goes back to my time with Le Repaire Fantastique, when we were constantly testing new materials through a hands-on approach, building things ourselves, often at the scale of furniture. We’ve always been interested in the sensuality and tactile qualities of materials, so experimentation has been central. For our own house, for instance, we tried hemp insulation and recycled paper. We often remind clients that the most sustainable decision is to build on the right scale and with the right materials.

SM: That’s always been an important consideration for us—territorial impact. When you build something, you’re not just changing the immediate space, you’re impacting the larger environment: the infrastructure, the winds, the landscape. The change isn’t insignificant; it’s incredibly important, even if it’s just a small house. That’s why we try to look at the larger scale and think about how the building interacts with its surroundings. For competitions, the first questions are always about the site: What’s working and what’s not, and how can we use the building to fix some of those issues? Often, the goal is to put pieces of the puzzle in order with just one intervention.

SP: Even with private commissions, we try to challenge the client's requests. For some renovation projects, clients may just want to comply with energy standards, but we see it always as an opportunity to rethink the building's typology and circulation. We always question the design, changing the typology to something that works better.

Shifting scales

SP: Our first commission, my father’s former house, was particularly meaningful—not only because it was a family home, but also because of the emotional dimension it carried for me. 

SM: It was also unclear who the project was for at the time. Was it for renting, for family, for weekends? The program was missing. It was an emotional project—dealing with the loss of Simon’s father—and it was about breathing new life into the place. We didn’t know we’d be living there until much later. Some of the decisions we made may no longer be the most appropriate, but they were choices we took together and regarded as correct at the time.

SP: After that, we worked on many projects for friends, often involving major transformations. This scale demands a lot of energy and persuasion, and at times it can be difficult to manage. For a long time, as we discussed, our focus was mainly on housing projects. Now, however, we have the opportunity to work on public buildings, in Sembrancher and in Martigny—a new and exciting scale for our office.

SM: Here, you can really observe how construction has evolved in the region. Buildings from the 1920s and 1930s followed very specific built methods, and until the 1980s, the range of available materials and techniques was still quite limited. Sembrancher itself is a small place. Once an important historical town, today it has become more of a transit point, with people passing through to Italy or to ski resorts like Verbier.

SP: The municipality of Sembrancher owned a protected building that already housed their offices and later decided to acquire an adjacent building to expand the project. This building dates back to the late 19th century but was poorly reformed in 1977. Over time, it underwent multiple alterations, including changes to the ceilings, which omitted much of its historical character. One of the main challenges, therefore, was to unify the two buildings and develop a new typology respecting the existing structure while preserving the essence of the historic building.

SM: During the awards ceremony of the competition, we noticed that everyone else focused just on the main building. For us, the question was: How can we make a meaningful change in the area involving both buildings? We started by analysing their relationship to the urban scale—considering dimensions, circulation, and the reason for empty spaces. We explored how the buildings relate to each other, to the church, and to the surrounding context.

SP: The main challenge was the relationship with the street and the neighbouring church. We removed the existing façade to create a small square and reorganise the building’s entrances, improving its connection to the urban environment. This also provided two entrances, increasing flexibility and allowing the building to serve multiple purposes. The project became an opportunity to experiment.

SM: We questioned the organic nature of site typology. The geometry of the town hall plan was a precise orthogonal geometry, which seemed disconnected from the surrounding organic typology of the town. We speculated that the building was conceived to be isolated in some way, and that’s why we created a small square to give it more independence to the building.

SP: In opposition to the old façade, we introduced a contemporary one using prefabricated concrete. The project engages with the surrounding context and the church across the square to create new public spaces. Local serpentine stone and references to original materials guided our design, while removing old shutters revealed the building’s character and improved usability. The central part was kept as a hub connecting both sections, allowing flexible use. Compactness lets us focus on high-quality materials and finishes—something which is often harder to achieve in oversize housing.

SM: Working on these types of buildings requires humility and patience. You have to adapt your thoughts each time you go to the site. You have to work with the past, present, and future. This is a matter of respecting the essence of the building and adding value to the community as well. For us, it is an incredible experience involving history, experimentation, and compromises.