PLACE BLEUE inaugurated at bluefactory

BFF SA today inaugurated PLACE BLEUE, the new central space of Fribourg’s bluefactory innovation district. Organised around a landscaped pond, it is a major step in the site’s transformation into a sponge district, carried out in partnership with Mobiliar. The project aims to improve water management, limit runoff and heat islands, strengthen biodiversity and provide people with an open meeting place.

A space of freshness, biodiversity and reuse

The pond is connected to the site’s one-million-litre capacity underground reservoir and is fed by the Pilettes spring. It serves both as a cool area and as a storm basin capable of retaining runoff water during severe weather. Its surroundings have been planted with native species and landscaped to accommodate birds, hedgehogs and lizards.

Designed with VWA (Verzone Woods Architects), the complex illustrates the circular economy principles applied by bluefactory: reused tiers from a former technical gallery, an experimental footbridge at EPFL Fribourg made with repurposed concrete blocks, stones recovered from the site and 780 m³ of topsoil produced from excavated soil. A wooden dome, developed with the HEIA-FR, completes the layout.

A place chosen by the bluefactory ecosystem

The name PLACE BLEUE is the result of a competition organised among the site’s companies, competence centres and associations, which received nearly 480 proposals. The new name appears in front of the pond in weathering (corten) steel letters created by Fribourg artist Daniel Mauron, whose sculpture Salutation au Soleil is close by.

The Mobiliar partnership accelerates transition to a sponge district

BFF AG’s and Mobiliar’s partnership to support the site’s progressive renaturation runs from 2025 to 2027. The first phase includes the underground basin, the storm pond, more permeable surfaces, the greening of the district’s centre and roofs along with new amenity spaces. The next step is to create a landscaped moat near the railway line. Since 2023, the Mobiliar cooperative has been supporting sponge city projects to reduce damage caused by heavy rainfall and to improve quality of life in built-up areas.

With PLACE BLEUE, bluefactory affirms its vocation as an open, lively and accessible district, where research, entrepreneurship, training, culture and urban quality meet.

About BFF SA

Founded in 2014, Bluefactory Fribourg-Freiburg SA develops and runs the low-carbon innovation district bluefactory, which brings together more than 650 people in more than 70 companies, start-ups, research institutes and innovative organisations.

About Mobiliar

Founded in 1826, Mobiliar is the oldest private insurance company in Switzerland. Organised as a cooperative, it insures one in three households and businesses and supports projects aimed at making built spaces more resilient to the effects of climate change.