/// Agricultural Outlet - WS 2002/2003
/// Organic food and commerce
/// Prof. H. Schneider

Subject

Factory outlets emerged in the USA during the 80’s. In Germany today, there is an ever growing number of factory outlet stores for textiles, sportswear, porcelain, or jewellery. Until now, agricultural farms did not use the advantages of low costs of sales and other benefits of the concept of outlet stores. An agricultural outlet store benefits from its proximity to production and improves the image of agricultural business heavily shaken by scandals. Architectural concepts have to be developed for this kind of hybrid building which resides somewhere between traditional farms and modern agricultural factories.

Site

The site of the outlet store for organic food is positioned on the outskirts of the Belgian town Eupen, near the German border between the motorway and the city centre. It lies on a heavily frequented, heterogeneously-used street leading to the city centre. At the same time, the hinterland is rural. The "unreality" of the site, the mixture of filling stations, supermarkets, car dealers, kiosks, residential buildings and farms demands specific architectural concepts that can deal with this kind of location.

Initial considerations

At the beginning of considerations, there was the question of the relation between nature and human beings. What is happens to food during the process of production? Usually, we have no insight into this process.
On account of the fact that the site for cultivation, production and consumption are brought together again, the concept of an agricultural outlet provides the chance to understandably convey the worth of organic food production. The aim is to reach as much transparency for the consumer as possible.

Spatially, this kind of hybrid between farm, food production, outlet store, residential, and office building makes a lot of different demands.

Concept

In a first step, it seemed to make sense not to unify the individual agricultural functions under one roof because there are very sound archetypes for this but to just modify them when necessary.

According to the procedures of production, the above-mentioned intention to give extensive insight and the functional relations resulted in the development of a structure which consists of two long outer volumes with several perpendicular strips in between. The volume at the back is for supplies (storeroom for feed, vehicles and the biogas-system), connecting to the surrounding countryside, whereas the volume at the front is the outlet (outlet store, butcher, baker, cheese-dairy, cafeteria, office) connecting to and communicating with the public and the commercial environment. In the strips in between, you will find stables, a greenhouse and the residential building of the farmer.
The single buildings form an ensemble. Inside, you can find a closed circle of production. Special attention was paid to the interface between the outlet surroundings and the outlet stables. While inside the outlet store, the customer can look into the adjacent stables. From here and even when arriving at the car park, you also have direct insight into the food production areas.