Description

The Ricola company required a new building for the fully automated storage of herbal sweets. The 60 m long, 26 m wide and 17 m tall high-rack storage defined the size of the building. The hall was positioned close to the 10 m high precipice of an open quarry adjacent to the premises and forms a courtyard with the existing buildings.

Seen from a distance, the building appears as a unit. An annex for loading and unloading lorries is the only addition to the hall’s volume. As one gets closer, the façade reveals its load-bearing and charging components. Finger-shaped ribs are added to the vacuum concrete floor slab, which is cast directly onto the rocky ground. Horizontal and vertical Eternit panels are fixed to timber posts with brackets; the posts rest on the rib foundations. The panels function as a rain screen cladding and allow for the ventilation of the insulation behind. At roof parapet level, Eternit panels form a projecting cornice under which the metal structure of the high-rack storage is visible.

The architectural design of the façade takes up the theme of stacked timber boards in local sawmills, as well as the geological structure of the exposed layers of limestone of the yellow rock. The Eternit panels increase in size from the bottom towards the top, highlighting the difference between the lower building, where numerous single foundations support the façade structure, and the upper building, where a cantilevering timber structure reveals the metal high-rack storage inside the building. The layering of the Eternit panels also visualises the storage of the goods inside the building. Altogether, the reflection of the building’s function and its context in the construction of the façade system exemplifies the architects’ interpretation of the site.

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Originally published in: Jürgen Adam, Katharina Hausmann, Frank Jüttner, Industrial Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2004.