The westside project for Leisure and Shopping in Brünnen is an urban scale architectural project totalling 150,000 square meters.  Theme park swimming pool with fitness center, shopping, media plex convention center, hotel and senior housing are all included in this mixed-use program that radically reinvents the concept of shopping and entertainment.  The development creates an exciting gateway into the city of Bern as it dramatically positions itself over the highway.  The aim of the project is to design a space in which the life of a city is reflected.  The project also creates a unique integration of architecture and landscape at a large, urban scale.

Westside is an independent, but integrated district of Bern and has been planned accordingly. The development creates an exciting gateway into the city of Bern as it dramatically positions itself over the highway and is integrated into the city with its own highway exit and train stop. The wooden facade consisting of several layers is connecting the city area with the countryside while emphasizing on the major project. The right-angled but transverse cut boxes made out of steal concrete constructions with a prop grid of 8,10 x 8,10 meters are creating sophisticated rooms and generating different external areas. 

The concept offers commercial, leisure and living spaces at day and night just like any naturally grown district. This building is not only a landmark, but also an urban organism which attracts not only the region, but becomes a place of excursions, congresses and seminars, living and working as well as leisure area. In addition to housing, there are about seventy shops, a hotel, a multiplex cinema, a senior residency and a wellness center included in a mixed-use program that radically reinvents the concept of shopping, entertainment and living.

The spine of the public space is the ”Mall” just like the urban scale of a medieval city but adopting the functions of public space in the 21st century. The design includes lower and higher rooms, alleys and - two plazas where the changing of daylight can be noticed through roof cuts. The two plazas have different identities. One plaza is orientated to the landscape and opens up at the other end to the bath. This reflects the day. The other is connecting to the cinema and the hotel while providing atmosphere for night life and catering.

The building design integrates the landscape and the different directions of the site while providing a unique look to the external areas. Extensive window cuts open up the facade. There are existing different designs of cuts. This has an effect on the food court or the wellness area where it can be either panoramic window or natural light for the circulation area. Furthermore you can see the highway, gateway to the living area, the railway tracks and the widespread landscape to the south. It is a unique outside element of Westside Bern Brünnen. During the day the partly dark tanned window cuts contrast the light wood facade. At night they illuminate so that the parts of the structure disappear in the night, similar to a picture puzzle, so that from the outside the cuts are recognized as lines. 

The form of the cubes opens up to the plazas as well as the bath. They are defined by crystalline form with angular sides looking like pieces of rocks breaking through the cubes. The steel concrete construction is designed like a crystal where the structure is a trapezoid creating openings, galleries and arcades with shops and catering facilities. The interior is plastered white. The grid structure of the crystal is covered with zinc plates when it cuts the facade and/or the roof. The crystals and its plazas are designed like boxes. Only the design of the glasern crystal of the bath is differing. The pattern of the mall’s alleys is never the same and it is not enclosed. Tenticulated it cuts the spaces of the Mall at the facade and creates entrances and exits. The northern part of the mall leads to the forecourt of the train station, the senior residency, the hotel and the landscape. 

The project design creates a new centre for shopping and leisure which attracts not only visitors for the Mall, bath and hotel but also people interested in architecture. The Mall and the other adjoining buildings can be used day and night allowing westside to become a new district of Bern. 

"At the beginning of the 21st century there is a need to address contemporary social needs and desires and an emerging economic potential in order to create a new generation of shopping center an leisure facilities."

"The sustainability and long range success of a new facility depends upon the creation of public spaces which in their functionality and architectural character provide a new identity by fusing together the dimensions of commerce, culture and leisure."

"The bulk of the retail space of the westside project is organized in the well-tested convention of boxes and their efficient relationship between retail, circulation and delivery.  In dialogue and contrast to this convention, the westside 'mall' is developed into a crystalline structure which articulates public spaces and leisure facilities in a sculptural architecture.  This space creates a great variety of scales, perspectives and atmospheres ranging from the grand to the intimate, from the dynamic to the contemplative.  This central space orients, attracts and provides unprecedented flexibility for the future needs of the entire complex."

"Architecture is no longer considered a footnote, but is a fundamental means of engaging and extending the experience of the visitor toward new dynamic leisure horizons.  In this way, the entire shopping mall becomes a stage – a veritable vitrine - for public performance.  By configuring both the external and internal spaces in an innovative and efficient manner, the complex provides synthetic entertainment for a wide public.  It is a place of celebration, enjoyment and consumption in which people can spend many hours in a variety of atmospheres and activities from shopping to dining, swimming to living all within a lively and magical environment.  By providing access to audiences of all ages and sectors of society, the new center becomes a multi-layered invitation to all."

"The westside creates an exciting gateway into the city of Bern as it dramatically positions itself over the highway becoming an icon in the landscape.  In its new architectural form for leisure and fun, westside is indeed destined to become not only a local and regional attraction, but a world class destination."

Daniel Libeskind