Can a cutting-edge factory, innovative for both its design and technology, occupy the Umbrian landscape with the same gracefulness that the most beautiful abbeys once did centuries ago? We believe the answer is yes. Our factory’s architect, ENZO EUSEBI (NOTHING STUDIO), made the clear choice to consider architecture and landscape as a unified whole in this project, paying attention to nature by designing a plant that is highly efficient and equipped with the most modern technologies and infrastructure. The configuration of the plant’s courtyard creates a “domestic ambience” at a human scale where the careful study of ergonomics and workplace comfort are accompanied by — for the first time in Italy — the use of robotics in meat processing.
Seemingly simple, the factory harmonizes with the green mantle of the hillside in such a way that it seems to have always been a part of the countryside, enhancing the landscape without overwhelming it. The result is a discrete but impressive jewel of architecture that minimizes environmental impact through a green cover with natural and economic advantages, such as an intelligent and sustainable waste water cycle.
The fully glazed surfaces of the factory reflect the landscape while at the same time allowing for a full view of the countryside from inside the structure. In this way, the landscape can “enter” the factory and the work that takes place within it is also visible to outside viewers thus giving life to the building and ennobling its workplace in a happy dialogue with the territory that is not nostalgic but rather looks to the future.
But it is at night that one can truly understand the artistry that defines the soul of this place when technology becomes a stage, light becomes theatre and the whole valley can contemplate the beauty of an iconic work worthy of the tradition of the ancient abbeys, where doing and thinking come together in the liveliness of contemporary life and business.
THE DESIGNER – The person responsible for ideating and managing the Prosciuttificio di Preci project is Enzo Eusebi, an architect and engineer renown in Italy and abroad for his sustainable design approach that considers sustainability from the environmental, economic, and managerial points of view.
The world premier of this project was presented by Eusebi at the Thirteenth Edition of the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2012 inside the Italian Pavilion curated by Luca Zevi whose theme for the year was the interrelationship between architecture and the environment working together for territorial and economic development.
