Lemon Factory Extension

Martin works for Urban Future Organization (UFO), an internationally networked architectural practice involved in advanced digital design and fabrication. This new administrative wing is being added to an existing factory outside Messina in Sicily, sitting adjacent to a production building which is actually Italy’s largest producer of lemon juice and lemon extracts / essences. The brief was for a sequence of flexible spaces to house the reception area, staff offices, meeting spaces and canteen, along with a swimming pool and a fitness centre. The interior of the building reacts to the requirement to keep the spaces fluid and able to change their use over time. The project is currently on site and scheduled for completion in Spring 2008. In terms of research questions investigated, the key ones were how to develop new techniques of modulation design and structural design in what is a highly active earthquake zone, and then – given this crucial demand – how to create a new kind of flexible spatial organisation for a rapidly evolving company.

In its design processes, the Lemon Factory has to be understood as part of a line of projects being carried out by the UFO practice and by similar entities – such as Ocean or Foreign Office Architects – into free-form, fluid and linear architectural forms, allying to this the pursuit of new forms of digital design and manufacturing in architecture. This project has been exhibited like other UFO project in important events such as the 2004 Venice Biennale, 2006 Beijing Biennale, and also in books like the press through articles such as in Building Design (7 March 2003, pp. 12-15). Urban Future Organization is a collaborative practice in which Martin and Yau are senior design figures, both being equally responsible for designing major projects such as the Lemon Factory near Messina.