Ricola Kräuterzentrum in Laufen Herzog & de Meuron, Basle
Herzog & de Meuron and Ricola are a team that has enriched Swiss industrial culture with many a model structure. After an interval of 15 years, the two undertakings have now added a further chapter to their collaboration. The new Kräuterzentrum (herbal centre) on the outskirts of Laufen near Basle is probably the largest rammed-earth building in Europe to date. It is also an appropriate symbol of the entrepreneurial values of the clients: reliability, identity with native values and a consciousness of their responsibility towards the environment. At the same time, the structure, which the architects developed jointly with Martin Rauch, the Vorarlberg earth construction expert, is in one of the oldest forms of building in the world, here applied in an age of system construction and prefabrication. The outer walls consist of a total of 666 rammed-earth units, each weighing up to five tonnes. Their massive character may be surprising for an industrial development, but it ensures a relatively constant indoor climate throughout the year for the storage of the ingredients that the client, Ricola, traditionally uses to manufacture its famous “Swiss Kräuterzucker” herbal confectionery. Numerous details of the building skin are related to the physical properties of the construction material, from the unconventional circular form of the windows to the minimal roof projection, which is designed to protect the earth walls from erosion. Within the cubic volume, of course, the logic of linear operating sequences dominates, namely short routes and maximum flexibility. All this begins only a few milli metres behind the external walls, where the building is stabilized by a powerful reinforced concrete skeleton frame against wind loads and earth tremors.
Others involved in the project: see page 321