«Tomado» Factory at Etten-Leur, Holland

Abstract

This project involves a complex building to house the various manufacturing departments of the factory and also the offices. It has been designed so that it can be extended, to cope with the increasing activity of the enterprise. Taking the above facts into account, the distribution is highly organic: each section can be developed without affecting the rest of the project. The building has two floor levels: the lower one occupied by the workshops, and the higher one is taken up with the offices and the manager's rooms. The functional demands of this factory make it advantageous that the supplies of power, hot and cold water, compressed air and other conduits by taken along the ceiling of the workshops. The heating radiant panels, fitted in conjunction with the fluorescent lighting, are also attached to the ceiling. The general design of the building provides a considerable flexibility in the internal arrangements, alterations of which can be done very rapidly: this helps substantially in meeting the changing demands on the factory, which is a typical phenomenon in many modern industrial plants. The colour schemes have been worked out cleverly by the architects, who have succeeded in achieving very pleasing effects. In addition, there is an important artistic contribution by Zadkine, at the entrance, which symbolises human industry.