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Artist's rendering of new CSS sports and health performance centre in Lausanne

Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The CSS (Centre sport et santé), a sports performance centre shared by EPFL and the University of Lausanne, will have a new home in 2012. Lausanne architects Krüger and Kazan have been given the mandate to build the CHF11 million new centre, an extension to the existing Omnisport building, with construction to begin in January 2011.

The project is supported financially by cantonal bank BCV, Vaud’s cantonal sports fund and the Chuv university hospitals.

The new centre will have as its primary focus students at the two universities, but it will be open to the larger community, to others who are interested in measured sports performance at all levels including individuals.

The CSS in 2009 ran 3,700 sports performance tests for athletes in training.

The goal, according to EPFL, is to help anyone trying to practice sports in a “well-thought out, controlled, progressive and individual way.” Sports federations, many of which are based in Lausanne, elite athletes and other sports groups are expected to use the centrefor tests, controls and training planning.

New instruments will be part of the centre’s offer: to measure gases exchanges, maximal oxygen consumption and cardiovascular performance,  andto estimate legs’ muscular power, for example, and to calculate an athlete’s speed. New areas will be set up to research movement, biomechanics and diet, with the Chuv and the two universities working together.