The manufacture of food stuff conveys a continuous actualization of the
facilities, the creation of new product lines, the incorporation of new
technologies, or the dimensional adjustment of the warehouses and machinery.
These continuous changes generate also the way of producing the whole architectural
project. This one begun more than seven years ago and still continues today. At
the time, we have closed two phases up: the offices and the warehouse.
Morphing
The original order consisted of the completion, with offices, of the
warehouse that was the second expansion of the original facilities of the
company. It was also commissioned to re-organize the production space with new
production lines, (including a cooled line for butter), an oven, a new packing
machine, new cold storage rooms (4ºC
and -20ºC)
and a couple of offices for quality control in the warehouse space.
The view from inside towards the exterior develops a transformation from
the geometry of the original trusses (the average for a span of 20m), to a
line, parallel to the road, oblique respecting the direction of the structure, at
the high of the roof ridge.
The result of this is an external double conoid-shape made of corrugated
sheets (broken by the line of the ridge) and another conoid surface inside which
have continuity with the walls. This surface has two kind of finishes, PVC in
the warehouse and aluminium in the offices.
Glass house
The access to the offices is situated in a vertical space between the
façade plane which folds out towards the street and the first line of the
structure. A sequence of stairs and ramps climb up through this space, bringing
on different visual relations between outside-hall-inside…In this space, one makes
the transition, but with a “conditioning”.
“Appetizer” of
offices
The plan of the offices has an area of 500m2 (20X25). Different levels
of relations between the staff of the company and clients or collaborators take
place here. We take advantage of the generous high of the ceiling to reinforce
the project decisions (morphing), and arrange the program in an atomized way.
We design each piece to be autonomous from the others, so they have different
shape, color, matter and constructive technique.
All of these pieces “are served” on a “vase”, made of timberwork, mixing
different kind of wood, that wraps the floor and the walls, constructing
parapets, windowsills and hollows..
Pictures of yeast (raw material used in the production of the company)
viewed through the microscope were printed on vinyl for qualifying the
transparence and privacy of some of the offices.
Storage kit.
The new warehouse consists on a complete structural system made of steel
frames of variable section covering big spans (55 m), combined with a system
of industrial shelving.
We still had to solve the connections and the façades. For unifying the
truck docks with the parking area and the tanks for liquid nitrogen, we
constructed a canopy of variable shape and high, that makes up the south façade
together with the offices.
…and we keep going….
There are a certain number of projects, some have been finished, others
haven’t, like the canopy over the parking area, and others that are been
studied like the reform of the original warehouses of the company.
To be continued….