Factory & Offices
Siracusa, Italy, 2005

Team: Andrea Di Stefano, Aleksandra Jaeschke
with Edouard Cabay, Daniel Coll i Capdevila and Caterina Padoa Schioppa
Engineering: Adams Kara Taylor

Medical Oxygen Plant integrates a highly specific industrial process of medical oxygen distribution with administrative facilities and a small living space. It explores environmental and structural potential of aluminium and investigates its aesthetic qualities in order to express purity and ethereality of oxygen in an iconic yet sustainable structure. The system of folded aluminium sheets forms a self-supporting skin which controls the internal climatic conditions thanks to strategically differentiated elements. The origami envelope wraps the void with a millimetres-thick and highly recyclable material, “materializes” light thanks to high reflectivity of multifaceted surfaces and renders air perceptible thanks to a porous skin which allows the sea breeze to penetrate in.