Industrial buildings lack charm and creativity. But, they are great examples of durability, functionality and intelligent use of resources. This is exactly the case with the Tea Seed Oil Plant below, a factory located in Zhongping Village, China. Spotted on archdaily.com, the project was realised by Imagine Architects in 2014. As explained on the website, the architects were constrained to respect two limitations. One was related to the interior spaces of the factory which had to meet the requirements of the production process. The other one dealt with the quality of the environment: the natural landscape needed protection and so did the historical site (the village is situated in an ancient Chinese county).
Characteristic features for industrial buildings include large and long facades, unbroken blank walls and glass surfaces, corresponding to a single, undivided internal space.
Common for industrial buildings, old bricks, old tiles and old door sheets were used as predominant materials. Bricks were used in three major ways, self-supporting, space-retaining and insulation.
In order to reduce the pressure to the environment from the building size, the 160m long, 13m wide building is folded into “Z” shape.
The paints are missing: the bricks and wood sheets used for both outside and inside walls are colourless.
The industrial look relies on neutral tones.
Tiles were used for insulation instead of water proofing, which is also the visual link between old and new buildings.
