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Crafted by BOX Arquitectos, A10 is the end result of the adaptation of an industrial warehouse facility into social spaces for the factories and the result breathes new life into a former warehouse facility in Portugal. This program is composed of administration areas, offices, medical offices, the lunch hall and resting area, bathrooms with showers rooms included. The administration areas serve as the nerve center for the facility, providing offices and meeting rooms for operational management. Health and wellness are prioritized with dedicated medical facilities, ensuring workers have access to essential healthcare services on-site, while the lunch and resting areas allow workers to take breaks and enjoy meals together, fostering a sense of community.
The space is characterized by its great amplitude. The program is distributed along the space in a sequential logic from the administrative areas to the social areas for the workers. Throughout the architecture, the space expresses the whole volume of the hangar, with all the spaces being positioned and "deposited" in the space as if they were "transportation containers", waiting to be shipped.
The concept solidifies the memory of an industry, expressed in the present use of the warehouse. That said, the functional spaces occupy part of the space not reaching the total height. The original structural elements of the warehouse remain intact, reinforcing the idea of the containers piled up at the pier.
A10 exemplifies the power of adaptive reuse in architecture, demonstrating how industrial spaces can be transformed into social spaces without losing their historical meaning. Indeed, with thoughtful design, we can honour our industrial heritage while creating functional and welcoming environments for today’s workforce, with purposeful design that marries the past with the present.
