The Santa Maria di Zevio production site has always brought with it a systemic complexity due to both the type of production and its scale. Id group therefore opted, at the preliminary stage, for a flow analysis where the differentiation of movements, directions, and interferences of different types of users with respect to spaces (production workers, administrative, external visitors, suppliers, raw material acceptance, shipping, maintenance workers, emergency vehicles, etc.) was highlighted. This made it possible to have a design that responded to the main issues, namely those related to differentiation of entrances by shift flows (new site accesses and internal roadways), non-interference of maintenance workers and visitors in production areas (differentiated routes and filtering systems), construction of direct routes with respect to user objectives, and optimization of processing flows.
The expansion project of the production site was developed over a usable area of about 50,000 square meters (including also the construction of an additional pole intended for technological facilities). The architectural composition of the main body of the factory intended for production consists of three volumes that are distinct in form, corresponding to the raw material receiving and storage cell and storage for shipping the finished product (two “wedges” with wooden structure each measuring about 100 x 45 meters that produce cold and energy and provide accommodation for the unloading and loading bays) and the processing and service area (a parallelepiped with prefabricated concrete structure measuring about 80 x 200 meters). Important challenges overcome were the roof, which was made driveway and accessible to heavy transport vehicles through a ramp measuring about 115 x 8 meters, and the internal pathway dedicated to visitors and audit processes, the particularity of which is to be able to view the entire production process from above without interfering with production and ensuring food hygiene standards.
Another important challenge met was on the food hygiene and health front in relation to the size of the building, production capacity, personnel present, and local hygiene regulations, which are often not as corresponding with national and European regulations. In fact, the new production plant will be intended for the preparation of foods with a high service content and whose food design had to provide for correspondence to the most up-to-date environmental hygiene criteria, national and European food legislation, but above all also to the requirements established by the USDA (United State Department of Agriculture), since the products are also intended for the U.S. market.
