Manufactured in Junin de los Andes by Alric Galindez Architects

Junin de los Andes is a valley on the right bank of the river Chimehuin. The city developed along Route 234 and is located within the tourist circuit of 7 lakes, being the gateway to the Lanin National Park. The field of industrial plant is located on the side of the road and is the first construction of Junin de los Andes is when one comes from Neuquén.

The program envisaged a building needs to manufacture pipes of 6000 m2 epoxy resin, a resin reservoir, an area of ​​administrative offices, warehouses outside of pipes, workshops, yards and various support programs. The layout of the plant was not defined during the design process so that the building should be flexible enough to support different configurations and can undergo changes both during the construction and after it.

As a first concern arose that we think that way had to connect this building with the landscape and understand that, because of their physical location and size, would be part of the image of people who enter the city. So the issue is not going to cover only the most economical way possible layout, but to look with minimal resources, a building with character trasciendese a programmatic solution.

The principal requirements included the need to consider the possible future expansion of the plant. Consequently, we propose an open system that do not make future growth. The first building was located on a corner so to enable the uncertain growth to other sectors. As proposed strategy is to frame the property sector for the first and future buildings through 2 walls of vegetation native baskets, one forward and one to the gap, so as to define two limits.

The Municipality stated that the roof should have a minimum slope of 18 degrees, this being an issue because the plant size in the main building height development involved a volume of air and an important condition. Understanding the presence of cover, we decided to express it as a film with many folds that aims to give an idea of ​​being in action in motion. The roof of galvanized sheet detached from the box looking through a translucent sheet slit through which light enters.

On the eastern facade is divided into two access levels, administrative offices, the SUM, locker rooms, kitchen and other support programs. Through an alteration in the tail of the deck is resolved light to enter the floor.

The study’s interest in this project was mainly the object-landscape-city, in the knowledge of the sheet and its expressive possibilities, flexibility and economy of resources.