The Ricola Kräuterzentrum, or Herb Center, is a herb-processing plant in Laufen, Switzerland, next to the Ricola production facility. Herzog & de Meuron of Basel designed it for Ricola AG, its seventh project for the company since 1983. Construction took 16 months, and the center opened in early May 2014. Ricola invested 16 million Swiss francs.
The building is over 100 meters (328 feet) long and around 11 meters (36 feet) high. It cleans, dries, cuts, stores and mixes herbs, stages once spread across several locations. It handles 1,400,000 kilograms (about 3.1 million pounds) of fresh herbs a year.
The facade is solid rammed earth. The loam came from the Laufen valley, within eight to ten kilometers (5 to 6 miles) of the site. Lehm Ton Erde Baukunst GmbH built it, and Priora AG was the general contractor. The rammed earth and a heating system help stabilize temperature and humidity.
This building has no Wikipedia article. Facts come from Ricola.
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