NICE Headquarters Brazil / Mario Cucinella Architects

Text description provided by the architects. Nice, an Italian multinational leader in the Smart Home sector automation, has opened its new Brazilian 20,000 square meter manufacturing base in the industrial district of Campinas, Limeira, a city located northwest of São Paulo. The building designed by Mario Cucinella Architects also houses the company’s International Research & Development Centre and serves as its Brazilian headquarters.

The project benefits from proximity to a natural water source and a forest which encouraged Mario Cucinella Architects to explore a bioclimatic design model both in terms of the building’s form and function.  For example, the distinct tropical leaf-inspired sloping roof of the new building rests gently on slender load-bearing columns that protect the existing vegetation.

The generous overhanging 2,670 sqm roof offers plentiful shade in and around the building creating an important passive cooling device with its overhang reaching up to 16m. To provide additional shading and protection for the glass façades during the middle of the day, the roof extends outwards from the façades, resulting in a significant annual solar gain reduction.

The courtyard entrance atrium has a highly distinctive 13.5 meter-high funnel at its center providing constant natural ventilation. The stable and moderate external temperature range in this region has enabled its tall ventilation chimney to be operational throughout the year.  The funnel is effectively the building’s lung. Its organic shape and dominant scale and position express the importance of environmental mitigation to the design of the building. The “lung” is also visible externally and can be seen from most of the building’s other floors including the ground floor where Nice’s showroom and manufacturing spaces are located.

To this end, Nice attains its objective of revolutionizing the idea of what a manufacturing space can be by replacing the image of a closed, compact structure with one of maximum openness and permeability.  Inside this sense of interconnectedness also applies to how those working in the building are brought together through large, glazed windows that enable staff and visitors on the ground floor to watch the manufacturing activities.  Above, the two levels of office floors and common areas are connected to a 500 m2 annex with social spaces, including an outdoor kitchen with a churrasco grill. This annex is reached using elevated walkways that run through the forest, again enabling those in the building to enjoy the surrounding woodland.

Nice’s manufacturing spaces were conceived as a smart factory based on the principles of Industry 4.0, a new approach that uses new technologies to provide improved working conditions, create a sustainable business model, and increase the efficiency and production quality of factories. Together, these policies helped inform an approach whereby the combination of thermal mass and natural ventilation render the production areas at Nice free from requiring mechanical heating and cooling while enabling high standards of comfort through a strategic combination of passive environmental control systems.