Trailer Ferrero Technical Center

"The main ingredient is the territory: the Langa, with its history and people.
Combining natural and human components to create a new technical innovation hub, an expression of corporate identity, excellence, innovation, passion and the people who have always represented the group and its industrial culture: this is manufacturing 4.0."
E. Frigerio

A project in time, on the territory, in the Langhe. 
Following the seasons, photographing changes and returning evolutions, narrating places and architecture, culture and work, nature and artifice. An architectural object that becomes the manifesto of a new way of designing workspaces, in relation to the context in which they are inserted. 
Moving from the landscape, from material and immaterial heritage, to delve into a narration that establishes a continuous parallelism between the territory and its construction, between the interpretation of the landscape and an architecture that takes shape.

The Ferrero Technical Center. 

Nature and man, morphology and architecture, tradition and production share the same land, the passing of the seasons and the relationship with a historical context - Alba - rich in cultural cues and references. Known in Roman history as “Alba Pompeia,” in fact, the city was founded on the right bank of the Tanaro River, in the heart of the Langhe. 
Today the historical memory of its octagonal layout and the numerous medieval towers blend into a solid industrial fabric that encircles the urban plot, interweaving it with the surrounding territory. In these urban textures, the Ferrero Technical Center - the result of a competition won by Frigerio Design Group - reveals itself as a high-tech complex, while also respectful of the environment and people, expression of an industrial history and culture.

The project stems from the need to bring together under one roof all the research, design and construction activities related to production equipment for Ferrero plants scattered around the world, strategic know-how tied to the national territory and the Alba site. Hence the need to build a single hub where engineers can design the machinery, in close contact with the technicians who make it, optimizing synergies and workflow. 
An integrated project, a collective challenge. Visible from the highway junction, the Ferrero Technical Center is nestled between the countryside and the city, between the Tanaro River and the urban fabric of Alba. Facing west toward the Alpine arc and Monviso, it dialogues with the existing production site through its large, fully glazed Entrance Hall.

Its design is described from the earliest stages of the construction site and the voices of expert structural engineers and site managers recount the salient phases of the planning and execution of the facility in its complexity, made of pillars and trusses, its quadruple-height Hall, and a vision capable of making each and every plant and construction element dialogue. 

"A simple architecture, reassuring and alive, where technology is not “shouted” but is present, it is there but unseen. The use of materials and resources according to the principle of reducing excess and optimizing performance, to contain the ecological footprint."
E. Frigerio

A continuous dialogue between construction site and project, between virtual model and execution. 
The steel skeleton gives breath to the flexible spaces of the workshop, with its overhead cranes and gills; the structural elements dialogue with opaque color facades, and the transparent curtain walls are correlated to a roof that is as technological as it is apparently light and impalpable; the skin materializes in empathy with the landscape, with shapes and colors ideally referring to the autumn shades typical of the Langhe; the Hall and its transparencies recount the conclusion of a process of complexity, energy efficiency and quality. 

A succession of scenarios. The passing of the seasons. 
The open-space offices located on the top floor of the Ferrero Technical Center are immersed in the surrounding countryside, with a 360° overlook embracing the landscape of the Langhe and the hanging gardens with the essences of the territory and of the raw materials used for production. 
A true landscape at altitude. Colors, materials, acoustic solutions and microclimate play a strategic role in defining interior design, outlining an emotional space that enhances the sense of belonging. 
Ferrero Technical Center: landscape, geometries, shades of color and technology form a kaleidoscopic mosaic that narrates a portion of the territory, between innovation and tradition.

Learning objectives:

• The lesson focuses on the narration and description of the Ferrero Technical Center, which is a building-manifesto capable of combining natural and human components to give life to a hub that expresses corporate identity, technological innovation and environmental sustainability;
• The value of integrated design for the control of a complex project involving several professionals is examined, analyzing how the use of BIM enabled the integration, in real time, of the architectural, structural, plant engineering, technological and environmental systems;
• The prefabricated steel building system is analyzed, starting from design choices - architectural and structural – up to the construction phase, describing the characteristics of speed of assembly and efficiency of this system;
• The lesson explores how behind a simple, linear volume lies a complex technological system that enables the new hub to be a near-zero energy bioclimatic building;
• The story of an example of manufacturing 4.0 capable of accommodating the human-machine relationship. This relationship was developed through the inclusion of a specific ecosystem, from the relationship with the workspace, safety and living comfort.