Centro Insignia Región Pampeana

The Insignia Centers, which are dedicated to researching, promoting, distributing and marketing products and services for agricultural production (fuels, additives, fertilisers, seeds, etc.), were established following a call for proposals issued by the client and are located in the main towns of productive regions across Argentina. The first of these is situated on the outskirts of the town of Tres Arroyos, in the south of the Province of Buenos Aires, on National Route 3. The site is organised into two complementary sectors: a public frontage comprising the Main Building and the Laboratory Park, and an Operational Area featuring a complex of tanks and logistics warehouses for storage and distribution, structuring the circulation of various heavy vehicles in a comb-like pattern through alternating bands of enclosed, semi-covered spaces and courtyards.

The building types are developed from the vaulted warehouses typical of the rural landscapes of the Argentine Pampas, which offer structural rationality, speed of assembly and cost-effectiveness. The way in which this type is reinterpreted—combining it to form a complex and varied block in the operational area and abstracting it as an isolated, floating vault in the main building—determines the project’s principal spatial, technical and aesthetic qualities.

The series of floating vaults for loading and unloading activities is situated behind the nave of the main building, which contains flexible, multifunctional spaces for social, educational and commercial activities integrated into the Laboratory Park via the gallery and its terrace. This versatile space combines landscaped areas of native vegetation and seasonal crops to also accommodate machinery exhibitions, various outreach events and community engagement, creating a distinct and meaningful cultural landscape.

The main building houses training facilities (classrooms and meeting rooms), laboratories, a showroom and the administrative offices with key staff services, in a two-part complex with distinct characteristics. On the one hand, a predominantly transparent public access block, supported by a vault lightly held up by branching columns to concentrate the load-bearing points to a minimum, with galleries and terraces that promote maximum interaction with the surroundings to visit the crops, understand the centre’s overall operation and host a wide variety of events. This highly visible section is accompanied by a much more private and discreet administrative block, designed to meet flexibility criteria.
The organisation of the operational area adopts regular modules of vaulted metal structures arranged in series to accommodate all programmes with their specific infrastructure, logistics and security requirements. It defines a system guided by the simplicity and compactness of heavy vehicle circulation routes, which varies in the configuration of roofs and enclosures, and the addition or removal of modules. At the front, a pedestrian gallery is integrated, linking the warehouses with public circulation in a protected and safe strip, along with a system of sliding gates that uses colours and signage to identify the different uses and products. The warehouses feature skylights of various shapes and sizes, which, in addition to characterising the roof, allow for the easy integration of functions requiring greater height and improve lighting and ventilation conditions in specific spaces.
The layout of the warehouses places the fuel loading bay near the vehicle access point, to minimise the internal route taken by fuel transport vehicles, which are also stored and parked in the first adjacent enclosed warehouse module. The last two warehouses at the opposite end concentrate the handling of seeds and bulk fertiliser cells, enabling, on the one hand, the potential connection of the seeds to conveyors, silos or other devices that can be integrated into the Laboratory Park with the least possible interference with the manoeuvres of other vehicles, and, on the other hand, using the front of the last warehouse towards the party wall as a protected space for safe unloading.
The Tres Arroyos Insignia Center takes on the challenge of establishing itself as a regional landmark whilst, at the same time, integrating naturally into the transitional fabric between the suburbs and the productive rural area, reinterpreting the potential of the architecture that shapes the landscapes of the Pampas.