The new technical innovation center for Ferrero in Alba, in Piedmont, takes the name of Ferrero Technical Center. Designed by the Frigerio Design Group, it represents the new frontier of industrial architecture dedicated to food, capable of integrating into a unique landscape context: that of the Langhe, declared a Unesco World Heritage Site and from which some of the most renowned gastronomic excellences derive, from fine wines to white truffle, passing through the IGP Piedmont hazelnut.

Conceived in the name of total quality to respond to the principles of manufacturing 4.0, the Ferrero Technical Center aims at an automated and interconnected production, with a reciprocity between man and machine, in relation with its ecosystem. The technology, present in every aspect of the new Polo, is never ostentatious, but always harmoniously inserted in a recognizable and reassuring architecture, where the corporate identity, history and know-how of the group converge.

The result of a competition by invitation launched in 2017, it was born from the need to bring together and make the company's engineering activities complementary and interconnected, in particular those intended for the design of new production plants, with the workshop where they are pre-assembled and tested: an invaluable know-how, which the company wanted in its headquarters in Alba, a city intrinsically linked to its history.

Following his slow architecture approach, marked by the development of projects with a reduced ecological footprint, which live over time and draw the resources for their own definition from the context, Frigerio Design Group has created an iconic and reassuring architecture built precisely in starting from the natural context and in empathy with it, which integrates into the surrounding environment and creates relationships with the most characteristic elements of the Langhe landscape.

The largest Italian Ferrero plant is also located in Alba. The in-depth study of the place, as well as elements such as the link with the territory, nature and its colors inspired the architectural project by Frigerio Design Group, which reinterprets them through abstract geometries in the warm tones of an autumn landscape.

Capable of combining management functions with operational ones, the new hub, a bioclimatic building and nZEB (nearly Zero Energy Building) covers 12,700 m2 and houses over 200 employees. A simple and linear architecture that hides systems and technical parts from view; where the compact volume maximizes all the passive contributions and limits the resources for its management and maintenance, hosting the areas intended for production in the lower part and the offices in the upper part. The coexistence of the different functions is expressed through surfaces that are blind below and transparent above. Safety and sensory comfort are the values on which the entire architecture is developed.

Comfort working: these are the keywords used by the architect to summarize the project for the offices, with emotional spaces, where the five senses are stimulated in search of the right comfort. The materials and colors reproduce the nature that surrounds the building, making the offices a real "landscape at high altitude". A series of green patios, named by the architect "flying gardens", have been inserted in the center of the large open space to fulfill a bioclimatic, acoustic and aesthetic function, and thus ensure better sensory quality and natural lighting; and at the same time allowing moments of relaxation and meeting to be integrated into working life, bringing the internal nature closer to the external one, also thanks to the large opening onto the landscape.