Geneva Health Campus: New Home For Global Fund, GAVI, Unitaid In 2018

The construction of a new building to host the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and other key players in the area of global health is well under way in Geneva. The “Campus Santé” (Health Campus) is expected to open its doors at the beginning of 2018. The hosts of the building will be tenants, while the investment costs are borne by Crédit Suisse, a prominent Swiss investment bank.

The building is located in Grand Saconnex, in the immediate periphery of the Geneva centre in what is described by some in Geneva as the “Jardin des Nations” (Garden of Nations in reference to the nearby United Nations campus and its specialized agencies).

Neighbours will include a number of international organisations such as the World Health Organization (just three buildings away), the International Labour Organization, the International Migration Organization, the United Nations European headquarters, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. The Global Fund is currently located in Vernier, also a neighbouring city, but further from the action.

“The vision for the new campus is to create an inclusive global health community, in an environment that celebrates our culture and supports collaboration with colleagues, partners and the countries, delivering greater impact to the people we serve,” a Global Fund source told Intellectual Property Watch.

“This means using the new building as a catalyst for more collaboration and cooperation. Another principal motivation for the project is value for money. We expect that our office rent and utilities costs will fall by more than 40 percent,” the source said.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Unitaid, Roll Back Malaria, and Stop TB Partnership are expected to join the Global Fund in the building, according to the source. Some 1,400 people will he hosted in the building.

“The Health Campus provides an exciting opportunity for stronger collaboration with our co-locating partners. Internally, the building is designed as an open-plan environment, to promote ever greater efficiency and innovative working styles,” the source said.

Asked about the new proximity to the World Health Organization a stone’s throw away, the source said, “Being closer to WHO partners will no doubt be of practical, time-saving, benefit and – as with the vision for partners in the campus – help drive greater collaboration.”

Global Fund, GAVI as Tenants

According to a joint June 2016 press release [pdf] from Implenia, the construction company, and Crédit Suisse, the financing entity, the hosts of the building will have a 10-year lease.

In the release, Beat Schwab, at that time head of Real Estate Investment Management of Crédit Suisse, underlined the importance of French-speaking Switzerland and Geneva’s attractiveness for international organisations.

The building has a surface of 15,000 square meters and a gross floor surface of 40,000 square meters, including the basements, the release said, adding that the articulated form of the building and the reflectivity of anodised metal will produce a singular appearance-changing structure which will react to its environment, the light and movements around it.

According to its website, Real Estate Investment Management is the largest provider of real estate investment products in Switzerland and manages assets of CHF 40.5 billion, as of end of December 2016.

Asked about the financing of the project, the Global Fund source told Intellectual Property Watch, that “a commercial bank is responsible for construction, financing and ownership. The Global Fund will lease space. As a tenant, we avoid financial risk. The cost to the Global Fund will be zero.”

The investment cost of the Health Campus project is around CHF 140 million, according to a Crédit Suisse source.

The architects for the building are LRS Architectes, in Geneva.

Synergies with Partners but Stand-Alone Building

One of the advantages to the various organisations sharing space is possible cost-sharing and savings. According to the Global Fund source, the Global Fund is “exploring opportunities to create greater synergies with partners, and cost savings for shared services where this makes sense.”

The source also said that the campus has been designed as stand-alone, rather than a complex of buildings when asked if the immediately adjacent World Council of Churches building might eventually be incorporated into the Health Campus. The Intellectual Property Watch offices are located in the World Council of Churches building.

 

Image Credits: Foundation for Buildings for International Organisations, – Foundation for Buildings for International Organisations, Catherine Saez