Nestlé factory‘s visiting areas

The main intention of the design for Nestle factory‘s visiting areas was to create a landmark in the generic landscape of the highway that connects São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, revealing the existence of a public and accessible space. This visibility is achieved by the installation of two steel framed glass towers, which are connected to bridges that roads and wraps the existing building, granting access to the elevated walkway inside the factory. This way, visitors and services traffic are kept away from each other. The structural geometry and the materials used were designed as to trigger a sensorial and perceptive experience and to contribute to the comprehension of the information about the history and production of the chocolate throughout the visitation.
This work is an intervention inside the existing Nestlé chocolate factory. Built in the 60's, it was designed to receive the public, but in a very precarious way and without any museological attribute. The design solved the major issue witch was the organization of visitors and production flux, transforming the simple visitation circuit in a museum with interactive content and that also adds a strong character to a building which was, until then, ordinary.
Two external towers and footbridges were created. Each tower houses stairs and an elevator and the shortest bridge serves for the entrance, and a longest one, for the exit, both parallel to the highway.
The steel structure of the towers and footbridges is made up by tubular pieces, making up also for the support for the glass and expanded metal sheet panels. The floors made up of perforated metal sheet contribute to the natural ventilation and draining; the roofs are made of a steel panel with an EPS core to improve its thermo-acoustic perfomance. The structure is made up of non-coplanar triangular meshes 2.5 m high and which repeat every 10 m. That shape, besides making the structure more rigid and more slender, makes the glasses reflect different parts of the landscape. Footbridge I, supported by metalic columns and beams with varying sections, has 10 m spans between the supports and a 27.5 m span between the last column and the tower. Footbridge II has 15 m spans and a 5 m cantilever to the building. Inside the circuit, 10 thematic cores were designed, based on the production of the factory, from the raw materials, going through the different stages of production until the final packaging phase. Circular windows were opened in strategic spots. Each core has specific colours and materials, as well as soundtracks and scenography.