The Novartis Pavillon is located within a park on the Novartis Campus in Basel, Switzerland. It is designed as a place of encounter and learning about life sciences, hosting “Wonders of Medicine”, a permanent multimedia exhibition, as well as meeting spaces and a café. For the first time in its history, Novartis created a building intended primarily for the general public. The Novartis Pavillon is an important part of an opening process to make the Novartis Campus accessible to the community. Our brief was to create a media facade for the circular building.

The zero-energy media facade turns the Novartis Pavillon into a luminous icon that is visible from many locations in Basel. It is a communicative skin that acts as an interface between inside and outside, the company and the city, and promotes the Novartis Pavillon as a place of exchange and learning. In this way, the facade becomes a symbol of Novartis' openness to enter into a dialogue with the public, bringing the world of science and medicine closer to the community.

The facade of the Novartis Pavillon in Basel combines organic photovoltaics and LEDs to create a communicative building skin. It features a total of 10,000 solar modules with embedded LEDs and consumes only as much power as it can produce. The LEDs shine both outwards and in the direction of the metal shell beneath – causing their light to reflect and shimmer through the semi-transparent solar cells. This visually multi-layered membrane is used to screen the works of three international artists. It turns the pavilion into a luminous icon that is visible from many locations in the city.