A new technical innovation centre for Ferrero, one of the largest confectionery companies in the world – renowned for its brands such as Nutella, Kinder, Ferrero Rocher – is now completed.
Designed by Frigerio Design Group, the Ferrero Technical Centre is located in Alba, in the heart of Italy’s Langhe region.
According to the architects, “it represents a new level of integration between industrial architecture, natural landscape, sustainability of processes and wellbeing for workers”.
Adhering to the standards of Industry 4.0, the centre focuses on automated and interconnected production, where people and machines work in unison, while respecting its ecosystem.
Frigerio Design Group heeded a slow architecture approach: where projects, developed to ensure minor ecological impact, are long-lasting and draw on resources from the local context for their definition.
The architecture is integrated in the surrounding environment and builds links with the most characteristic elements of the landscapes typical of the Langhe, an area designated by UNESCO as a world heritage site. Alba is also home to Ferrero’s largest Italian production site.
An in-depth study of the area, in addition to factors such as the attachment to its territory, nature and colours gave inspiration to Frigerio Design Group’s architectural project, which reinterprets them through abstract geometries with the warm shades of an autumn landscape. Safety and sensorial comfort are key to the architecture.
The new centre supports management and operational functions and boasts a 12,700 sqm ecological building that is nZEB (nearly Zero Energy Building) and will host 200 employees.