A local bank

How to renew without repeating yourself? Create coherent, yet different, universes?
Offer skills that reflect both transparency concerns and confidentiality?

As part of this second achievement (after the one carried out in Romont) for Banque Cantonale de Fribourg, the watchword could not be clearer: total transparency and confidentiality concerns. These points are like contemporary banking mantras, and they have guided us when it comes to carrying out a complete redistribution of the spaces and services offered. In terms of space, the idea was to create a reception point, two client lounges, an office space and a cafeteria, to infuse it with warmth and modernity.

In this well-established “village bank”, a regional branch based in Attalens, we imagined glass boxes that slip into its interior like Russian dolls. Here the lounges, further on the cafeteria, the offices in the buffer zone. The different glazed spaces provide the desired transparency, with transfers partially covering them at head height so providing a level of privacy, and a welcome desire to blur faces. Sometimes, simple acoustic panels placed between the desks provide additional privacy.

From a technical point of view, the entire transformation involved an energy upgrade (external insulation, change of heating and cooling systems, ventilation), the same concern for safety issues and, in particular, the installation of an automatic safe.

In terms of interior details which take on all their importance, the reception point is defined by an open office which is custom designed by our office, in this case a block of multi-bevelled Corian in which a solid top is embedded as if in suspension.

In an alcove, above a bright yellow waiting bench, a panel of woven tavillons (small flat pieces of wood in the shape of tiles) brings woody warmth while reminiscent of a long-standing practice in the region. A process that is also found at the entrance desk, in a circle which obscures part of the window, in order to offer more comfort and security to the employees.