Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron has completed a major office building for banking giant Lombard Odier in Bellevue, near Lake Geneva. The project, dubbed "One Roof," represents the largest investment in the bank's over 200-year history and will house more than 2,000 employees previously scattered across six different locations around Geneva under a single structure.
The building emerged from an invited competition held in 2017, where eight renowned architectural firms competed for the commission. Herzog & de Meuron's Basel-based team triumphed over notable competitors including BIG, Dominique Perrault, OMA, and Diener & Diener. The bank selected their design for its ultramodern architecture that combines elegance and innovation, according to project descriptions.
Situated on a gently sloping site in immediate proximity to Lake Geneva, One Roof forms part of the Champ-du-Château master plan, which envisions two large-format volumes and a sunken park on the site. The opposing residential building containing approximately 290 units was designed by Geneva-based firm FavreGuth, which also served as the executive architect responsible for completing the One Roof project.
"We wanted something light that symbolizes movement; a concave facade that is inviting and acts like an embrace," explained Pierre de Meuron regarding the design concept. Despite its substantial gross floor area of 71,000 square meters, the building maintains a pleasantly airy quality, achieved through facades that open fully on all sides and across the complete height, enhanced by the curved contours of the dramatically cantilevered ceiling plates.
The generous cantilevers create exposed terraces in certain areas, typically connected to representative interior spaces with double-height ceilings that orient toward the lake. Herzog & de Meuron described the distribution of functions as emerging from dialogue with the surroundings, stating they attempted to avoid prescribing any particular orientation to the building and its uses.
Beyond offices for the existing 2,000 employees, the administrative building offers meeting rooms, fitness areas, an auditorium accommodating approximately 500 guests, and dining facilities of various scales - from a bistro in the entrance area to a restaurant on the ground floor and a cafeteria on the fifth floor. The architects emphasized that future growth has been considered, with space planned for an additional 800 employees as a safety measure.
The structural system consists of concrete in the form of slabs, columns, and stiffening cores, four of which serve as stairwells. Interior spaces combine exposed concrete and glass with more comfortable wood surfaces and carpeted floors. The lens-shaped atrium brings daylight into the deep building areas and, with its highly reflective surfaces, recalls the interior of a geode.
While construction costs were not published, Lombard Odier's website contains a 2022 figure indicating the bank anticipated an investment sum equivalent to approximately 320 million euros at that time. The project was completed in September 2025, marking a significant milestone in both the bank's corporate development and the architectural landscape of the Geneva region.
