site: el peral, spain
firm: impepinable studio
About 150 miles south of Madrid, the Spanish family company Agrosemillas operates entirely on-site in El Peral: farming, harvesting, processing, packaging, and storing legume and cereal seeds. In 2019, upon finishing CEO Julio Alberto Laorden’s residence, architect Gabriela Barrera of Impepinable Studio was asked to develop new industrial and office facilities to keep up with his and his sister Marian’s growing business, which they founded in 2010.
Before launching Impepinable in 2020, Barrera worked on international competitions and residential projects at Kengo Kuma & Associates and MVRDV and taught at the Technische Universität in Berlin. Agrosemillas was only her second project in the agricultural trade—one in which she was not given much direction. “In this sector, people never talk about design,” Barrera says. “But Julio discussed how difficult it is to hire people, how he needs to bring talent, but the facilities are in the middle of nowhere.”
For the office structure, Barrera proposed a 3,000-square-foot, single-story plan on a grid determined by logistics and variable workflow. On a rather modest budget, she conceived a concrete plinth topped by four readily available shipping containers, modified to frame picture windows 18 feet above to capture north-facing light. Compared to the adjacent buildings, the footprint is small, so there was opportunity to “play with the section, elevation, and volumes,” Barrera notes. The project was greenlit from the first meeting, despite such idiosyncratic details as circular windows and exterior paint colors in the bright green and yellow of Agrosemillas’s branding.
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For the lab, a workbench and additional furniture in stainless steel are custom. Photography by Del Rio Bani. -
Volumes clad in oak veneer and flooring of poured, polished concrete compose the material palette for the grid-system plan. Photography by Del Rio Bani. -
Windows are fitted with a hand-operated, perforated-steel screen. Photography by Del Rio Bani. -
Adjacent to the office building, industrial facilities for seed storage and processing were also designed by Impepinable Studio. Photography by Del Rio Bani.
The open, airy interiors are equally pared-down, enlivened by the same vivid color duo. Poured, polished concrete flooring and oak millwork compose the restrained material palette. Furnishings are clean-lined modern classics: Eames chairs, Fritz Haller desks and storage, industrial-esque pendant fixtures by Form Us With Love. The understated luxury conforms with the overall context of the 7-acre industrial site, where Impepinable also completed two industrial facilities. The company is thriving, Barrera says, “because it now has a strong sense of identity.”
FROM FRONT
NOTSON ACÚSTICA: ACOUSTIC CYLINDERS (OFFICE). THROUGHOUT MUUTO: PENDANT FIXTURES. USM: DESKS, STORAGE. VITRA: CHAIRS. IKEA: WHITE STOOLS. LEBREL FURNITURE: CUSTOM FURNITURE WORKSHOP. OSCAR REMOLINO: METALWORK. GV408: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. NORTAP: MEP. CRESVER80: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.
Source: https://interiordesign.net
