Varigrafica Printing Factory

Nepi, Italy

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a pool in a private garden

Varigrafica Printing Factory

Nepi, Italy

Firm

Massimo Adario Architetto

Type

Industrial › Factory

YEAR

2013

SIZE

25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

Printing company Varigrafica first opened for business in Nepi, a town in the province of Viterbo, in the '60s. Their first factory opened in 1992 and was dedicated to offset printing for the production of editorial and advertising material.

The expansion of this industrial building gave rise to the current configuration of the complex: an aggregation of volumes of different sizes, each of them corresponding to a functional scope.

In addition to the two existing buildings—one dedicated to services for the staff and “prestampa” (prepress) and the other to digital printing, staging, and storage of the finished product—four others were added: new offices, a new paper warehouse, a new offset printing area, and a new ink warehouse.

In response to the highly organized and planned nature of the industrial printing process, the complex is rationally built, based on a 2.4 x 6 meter module repeated and utilized in different configurations. One module is the vertical precast/prefabricated concrete panel used for the façades of the existing building and the paper warehouse; the same concrete module is placed horizontally for the façades of the new production area, and another is made of glass with a metal brise soleil for the façades of the offices. Each module has the same dimensions.

Modules and sub-modules are also repeated inside the building, in the offices, and in the design of the roof slab, the floor, and the concrete bearing walls.

In contrast with the orthogonal lines of the building, the garden is a free-flowing space that responds to the topography of the site: slight slopes and differences of the land have been designed to reproduce the original, natural terrain. Various species of trees indigenous to the adjacent forests—oak, maple, wild cherry, etc.—have been planted. The green system of the garden becomes a courtyard overlooked by both the offices and the new production area, from which the five buildings radiate.