Orangeale Factory by C&P Architetti

Nestled on the built-up edge of Fossalta di Piave in the Veneto plain, the Orangeale Factory by C&P Architetti Luca Cuzzolin and Elena Pedrina establishes a dialogue between industrial functionality, residential context, and the natural environment. The site, framed by a low-density residential fabric and adjacent industrial areas, presented a typical Veneto settlement scenario: a mix of houses, warehouses, and patches of urban countryside punctuated with vineyards. The architects responded with a project that emphasizes introversion, spatial continuity, and integration with landscape, allowing the building to emerge subtly from its surroundings while maintaining a strong architectural identity.

Context and Site Strategy

The site is defined by a high embankment, dotted with cornflowers and poppies, which conceals the building from the view of visitors approaching from the main southern road. This topographical gesture reinforces a principle of introversion, positioning the architecture within a protected landscape rather than imposing it upon the street. The embankment, constructed with a retaining gabion, is intended to be progressively covered by vines, creating a living façade that will evolve with time. This “third landscape” strategy contrasts the seriality of neighboring industrial buildings with a changing, dynamic environment, emphasizing nature’s slow, organic intervention in the built form.

Courtyard as Organizing Principle

At the heart of the design lies a large rectangular courtyard, the spatial fulcrum around which all internal functions are organized. Shielded from the road by the embankment, the courtyard provides a private, serene environment that connects workspaces, offices, and the owner’s car collection. Along one edge, the gabion wall supports three hackberry trees and climbing vegetation, creating a natural backdrop that mediates between the industrial character of the building and its surrounding landscape. The horizontality of the lawn, punctuated by a solitary oak tree, establishes a calm visual axis, while glazed façades on the west and north sides allow visual continuity between the courtyard and the interior, unifying landscape and architecture.

Materiality and Architectural Language

The Orangeale Factory balances industrial austerity with refined materiality. While the embankment and vegetation define the external interface toward the road, the internal architectural language emphasizes purity of concrete and metal. Floors, partitions, and workstations employ exposed concrete, while metal fixtures and structural elements reinforce the industrial character. Exposed ceiling ducts, lighting systems, and functional elements are deliberately left visible, contributing to an aesthetic of honest industrial expression.

The interiors are open and fluid yet functionally defined, arranged along a longitudinal distribution axis. Offices face the access garden, separated by partitions that maintain transparency and encourage circulation. The deliberate openness fosters communication and adaptability, while the combination of raw materials with carefully curated elements, such as furnishings by Albini, Gio Ponti, and Scarpa, plants, and artworks from the owner’s collection, softens the austerity and introduces warmth and human scale.

Programmatic Composition

The building accommodates multiple functions, from workspaces to a car showroom and a fully equipped kitchen. The kitchen, crowned with a steel volume, features a large window overlooking the neighboring vineyards, blending culinary activity with visual connection to the landscape. Adjacent outdoor spaces, sheltered by the embankment, serve as venues for informal gatherings and social activities. Driveways along the north side provide discrete access to both the car showroom and kitchen/sports areas, ensuring functional separation while maintaining coherence in circulation.

Interaction with Time and Nature

A key aspect of Orangeale Factory is its relationship with time and the natural environment. The climbing vegetation, designed to progressively cover the gabion walls and perimeter façades, introduces an evolving aesthetic dimension that changes with the seasons. From the outside, the architecture initially presents as an alienating object—a hybrid of infrastructure and landscape—but over time, it gradually merges with its surroundings, reflecting the passage of time and the continuous influence of nature.

Architectural Identity

Orangeale Factory embodies a balance between industrial rigor and poetic landscape integration. By combining introverted spatial organization, purity of materials, and sensitivity to the site, C&P Architetti have created a building that is at once functional, protective, and meditative. Its composition, from the high embankment and courtyard to the internal flow and material detailing, underscores an approach to architecture that is attentive to context, adaptable to use, and responsive to nature—a timeless infrastructure that harmonizes with both people and landscape.

Photography: Alessandra Chemollo