Snøhetta designs six learning rooms at Le Rosey boarding school in Switzerland

Le Rosey, founded in Rolle in 1880, is Switzerland's oldest and largest boarding school, with around 450 students from more than 70 countries. Its Impact Space, meant to nurture entrepreneurial thinking, now holds six rooms designed by Snøhetta, each built around a different way of learning and given its own name, palette, textures and furniture.

The Knowledge Room is a kind of indoor forest, with leaning tree-like columns that carry bookshelves, seats and display platforms. The Actis Virtus Room, built for discussion on equal terms, gathers around a big oval table under a matching overhead frame that holds the lighting and seats hung like swings. There is a room inspired by a Japanese tea house for quiet reflection, a Reflection Room of distorting mirrors, a Curiosity Room divided by an S-shaped curtain, and the Unafraid to Be Room, a small immersive amphitheatre in seamless orange for practising public speaking.

The joinery firm barth engineered, made and installed nearly all of the custom pieces, working around old rooms with barely a parallel wall between them. This is a private school, so there is nothing to visit, but it is a lovely read for anyone who remembers photocopied classrooms and wonders what else a school room could be.

Our summary of a story from designboom, published 23 October 2026. Read the original

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