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NICE Brazil Headquarters/Mario Cucinella Architects
Text description provided by the architect. Nice, an Italian multinational company in the field of smart home automation, has opened a new Brazilian manufacturing base covering an area of 20,000 square meters in the industrial zone of Limeira Campinas, a city in northwestern São Paulo. The building designed by Mario Cucinella Architects also houses the company’s international research and development center and serves as its Brazilian headquarters.
The scheme benefits from proximity to natural water sources and forests, which encouraged Mario Cucinella Architects to explore bioclimatic design models in both the form and function of the building. For example, the new building’s distinctive tropical foliage pitched roof rests gently on slender load-bearing columns that protect existing vegetation.
The generous 2,670 m2 cantilevered roof provides ample shade in and around the building, forming an important passive cooling device with overhang heights of up to 16m. To provide additional shading and protection for the glass curtain wall at midday, the roof extends outward from the curtain wall, resulting in a significant reduction in annual solar gain.
Courtyard Entrance The center of the atrium has a very unique 13.5 meter high funnel that provides continuous natural ventilation. The region’s stable and moderate outside temperature range allows its tall ventilation stacks to operate year-round. The funnel is actually the lungs of the building. Its organic shape and dominant scale and location express the importance of environmental mitigation to architectural design. The “lungs” are also visible from the outside and can be seen from most other floors of the building, including the ground floor where the Nice showroom and manufacturing spaces are located.
To this end, Nice achieved its goal of revolutionizing the concept of manufacturing space by replacing the image of a closed, compact structure with maximum openness and permeability. This feeling of interconnectedness also applies to how those who work in the building come together through large glass windows, allowing ground-floor employees and visitors to view manufacturing activities. Above, two office floors and public areas connect to a 500-square-meter annex with social spaces, including an outdoor kitchen with barbecue grill. The annex is accessed via an elevated walkway through the forest, again allowing those within the building to appreciate the surrounding woodland.
The manufacturing space in Nice is envisioned as a smart factory based on the principles of Industry 4.0, a new approach that uses new technologies to improve working conditions, create sustainable business models and increase factory efficiency and production quality. Together, these policies helped to shape an approach whereby a combination of thermal mass and natural ventilation eliminates the need for mechanical heating and cooling of production areas in Nice, while achieving high standards of comfort through a strategic combination of passive environmental control systems.
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