On the edge of the Queulat National Park in Patagonia, Chile, creating an industrial water bottling plant posed an interesting architectural question for its designer:
Panorama. The river, beside which the factory is located, is fed by glacial melt water whose purity is highly valued. But installing a factory by the river, for aesthetic considerations if nothing else, is not a matter to be taken lightly.
Similar facilities in or on the edge of national parks in the UK and elsewhere have produced ugly factories clad in crinkly tin, or profiled metal sheet, if you prefer, that at best are accepted as aberrations provided they feed the local rural economies in which they are located. Here however, the architects have tried to engage positively with the sensitive environment creating a striking intervention that in certain light, appears to melt into its environment.
The factory is sat upon a bermed podium that raises it just above the flood plane of the river. The climatic conditions are harsh which helped justify the use of black glass for the exterior cladding. The all important reflective qualities of the cladding provides a sort of decoration to the façade that is also an extension of the landscape.
