Youth Camp Expo Hanover 2000
The Sandoz Family Foundation supported Expo in Hanover with the construction of a youth camp. The complex, comprising 1600 beds and an appropriate number of public rooms, offered comfortable, budget-priced overnight accommodation for young people aged between 12 and 28.
Lausanne-based architect Kurt Hofmann devised the camp on a modular system. The 180 or so modules can easily be dismantled for re-erection elsewhere. In 2002, some of them were re-erected on the Arteplage in Yverdon-les-Bains for the Swiss national exhibition (Expo.02). Others are currently being used to accommodate the staff of Hotel Palafitte in Neuchâtel. Other units were handed over to the Foundation Sport-Etudes in Lausanne for developing its sports boarding school. It is also intended to use some parts of the installation for social purposes.
With this commitment, the Sandoz Family Foundation pursued its principles of innovation and sustained value and launched a project that attracted attention far beyond the scope of the Expo exhibitions. The Family Foundation did deliberately not confine its involvement to straightforward financing, but made this modular, re-usable and original building available as a product in its own right