The center for the drying, processing and storage of medicinal herbs is the seventh facility designed by Herzog & de Meuron for the Swiss concern Ricola, a manufacturer of herbal lollipops: the company's cooperation with the famous architectural firm began in the 1980s.
It is assumed that 1.4 million kilograms of herbs per year will be processed here. The construction allowed the owners to combine several stages of production under one roof: this is facilitated by the elongated form of the factory, where the stages of drying, cutting, storage and even presentation of the production process are lined up sequentially.
The customer was focused on sustainable construction from the very beginning, and wood was initially considered as the main material. But after their calculations, Herzog & de Meuron decided to use clay as the main building material and brought in Martin Rauch, a recognized expert in adobe constructions in Europe, and his bureau Lehm Ton Erde, based in the Austrian state of Voralberg.
The building is a rectangle 30 x 100 m in plan and 11 meters in height. Such dimensions make it the second largest in Europe with an adobe facade. The blocks for the construction of the facility were produced nearby; in addition to clay, stone and marl were used in their manufacture: all of them are located nearby, at a distance of 8-10 kilometers, quarries and mines. The factory, therefore, almost grew out of the land of Laufen, “combining traditional values with the logic of sustainable development,” says Martin Rauch. Self-supporting adobe walls help maintain a comfortable temperature and humidity inside the building; additional heating will be powered by solar panels from another Ricola factory located nearby.
The construction process of the new Ricola Herbal Center is fully reproduced in a video clip on the Ricola website. The project budget is 16 million Swiss francs.
According to experts, clay as a building material is now experiencing a new birth, however, most adobe structures are not so significant in size and have nothing to do with industry: these are mainly schools, administrative buildings and hospitals - for example, such as those that it builds in Third World countries recognized master of eco-architecture Anna Heringer.
