The Palais des Nations in Geneva at the UN’s European headquarters will undergo extensive renovation from 2020 to 2025. Meanwhile, part of the UN conferences will take place in a temporary replacement building (TIC). expomobilia built this in cooperation with the Dutch tent and hall construction specialist Neptunus.
Neptunus took over the construction of the building shell and expomobilia the responsibility for the entire interior construction including technology. The latter included electrical, IT, audio-video, ventilation and air-conditioning as well as security systems.
The expomobilia team was responsible for the general planning as well as project coordination, building permits, commissioning and organisation of the official inspections and handover to the UN.
Based on the competition concept, expomobilia developed a building project ready for approval within two months. Despite the extremely short realisation time (six months for planning and construction) as well as the temporary use (five years), the high quality criteria of the UN had to be met, which correspond to those of a permanent building.
The work on the diplomatic premises did not allow any short-term assignments. The access of employees and suppliers had to be announced and precisely coordinated in advance. From March to May 2020, the authorities of the Canton of Geneva ordered the closure of the construction site due to Corona. The distance regulations and hygiene measures when the construction site reopened slowed down the work process even more. Nevertheless, the temporary building was handed over to the UN after only ten months of planning and construction.
For the cladding of the conference hall, material was used that is usually used for the insulation of basement and multi-storey car park ceilings. In the temporary conference building, this allowed the high acoustic requirements in the rooms to be met.
The sloping conference floor was made of scaffolding material. Sandwich panels were laid on top. These panels are normally only used for walls and roofs. On the one hand, this method is sustainable (reusability of the materials) and on the other hand, it is installed very quickly.
In order to lay the numerous audio and IT cables in the floor, an additional raised floor was installed. Such a floor is normally only used in exhibition stand construction. This material (OCTANORM) has also been used in other buildings before.
