Nestlé Product Technology Center Singen

The building at Singen is part of a series of Product Technology Centers (PTC) designed by Richter et Dahl Rocha for Nestlé. Unlike other Nestlé PTC projects conducted by the firm that were interventions on existing buildings or extensions, the project at Singen involved the conception of an entirely new construction. The program for the project is distributed on the three floors of the building: a large pilot plant, development kitchens and public product testing areas on the ground floor, laboratories and a cafeteria on the first floor, office spaces on the top floor. Due to specific requirements in climate conditions and height for the pilot plant, floor levels vary between the front section of the building housing offices and labs that develops on three levels and the rear part of the plant, which comprises two levels: the working area at ground level and a “walk-on” technical ceiling above. The juxtaposition of these two different typologies led to the L-shaped cross section of the building, which is noticeable from the outside. The building thus appears as a simple extrusion, along the ground, of the L-shaped geometry of the section. Approaching the building, one gets the impression that the extrusion process could have been prolonged, that the building was sliced; the side facades were built using a translucent polycarbonate panelling to reinforce their character as cuts through the extruded volume. For the long facades, a beige brick was used to better integrate the building to its surroundings, an industrial site characterised by the presence of late nineteenth/early twentieth century buildings displaying similar beige brick facades. However, unlike the case of more ancient structures, the thin brick panels used for the PTC were hung on light steel frames following a contemporary technique. The horizontal composition of the brick facades combined with the treatment of the side elevations reinforce the feeling of length produced by the composition. On the east side, a blown up version of the company’s logo was imprinted onto the translucent material, making the corporate image of the company clearly visible and signifying its presence at the site.