Once the San Pellegrino Flagship Factory is completed in 2022 or 2023, pilgrims will find a state-of-the art, $95 million headquarters. Serving as a bottling plant, visitors\u2019 center, and monument to the green-bottled brand, the Flagship is the effervescent brainchild of Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), selected in an international design competition for the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As one might expect at a cathedral to mineral water, a sense of geology is at the heart of the experience. The building\u2019s storytelling is meant to evoke the thirty-year journey of San Pellegrino\u2019s flagship product from the summit of the mountain to its source. And in the building\u2019s courtyard, visitors can see a core sample of the mountain\u2019s stratified rock that gives the water its mineral quality. Aesthetically, the complex is inspired by classical Italian forms. Visitors are welcomed by an open piazza of undulating brick and a wall of minimal stone archways. These simple arches dominate the complex, acting as porticos, bridges, and sculptures throughout. The overall effect is to distill a history of architecture into a single expression as timeless as the water that\u2019s bottled there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, there\u2019s clearly another inspiration for the building\u2019s sensibility: San Pellegrino\u2019s brand itself. Inviting but austere, aspirational but democratic, the project feels just as informed by a high-level creative brief as much as it does by architectural drawings.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At some point\u2014long ago\u2014the idea of a \u201cbrand\u201d was straightforward. Designed to help differentiate a company\u2019s product or service from the competition, a brand might include a company\u2019s name, logo, and color palette. Today, however, the concept of \u201cbrand\u201d has grown to encompass myriad associated concepts, from sponsored content creation to meticulously planned experiences to apparel partnerships. The idea is that consumers will form a positive collective impression from these disparate touch points and, ideally, buy more of your company\u2019s fizzy water instead of someone else\u2019s. Unsurprisingly, brand thinking has also entered the architectural realm, guiding decisions at the highest levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Plus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Branded architecture also drives another of BIG\u2019s high-profile projects: The Plus. Designed for Norwegian outdoor furniture brand Vestre, The Plus bills itself as the world\u2019s most environmentally friendly furniture factory. Acting as a manufacturing plant plus a visitors\u2019 center, it\u2019s not hard to glean the reason for the all-in-one building\u2019s name. It\u2019s also shaped like a giant plus sign. In the world of branding, subtlety isn\u2019t as important as clarity and consistency.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Vibrant and whimsical, the facility is a LEGO\u2013futurist marvel that practically shouts Vestre\u2019s five-point brand manifesto at every turn. Brightly color-coded to elucidate the furniture-building process, the interiors resemble something between a giant subway map and a board game for toddlers. Curious visitors can follow furniture\u2019s progress across the four wings: Wood Factory, Color Factory, Assembly, and Warehouse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nestled in a forest, The Plus is surrounded tightly by trees, while the building\u2019s circular-open-air hub brings the outside in with a playful spiral staircase. Snaking paths surround the facility, encouraging visitors to explore, play, and even camp out near the factory. For a company that builds bike racks, picnic tables, and planters for public use, it\u2019s only fitting that the headquarters feels inviting, encouraging, and filled with wonder for nature.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a sense, branded headquarters are nothing new. Every corporate visitors center ever built has made some attempt to turn curious fans into lifelong loyalists. However, what may be new is the BIG\u2019s ability to elegantly translate a brand\u2019s intangible qualities into designed space.<\/strong> If more brands boasted a headquarters as compelling as San Pellegrino or Vestre, it\u2019s entirely plausible that we\u2019d start to see an emergence of another kind of tourism: the brand pilgrimage. Already common for breweries, distilleries, and vineyards, one can easily imagine eager tourists planning their vacations around seeing the homes of the brands they love best. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Visitors to Italy have plenty of pilgrimages to choose from. You can tread the cobblestones of Florence to see Botticelli\u2019s \u201cBirth of Venus\u201d at the Uffizi galleries. You can charter a gondola to peep the underside of Venice\u2019s famous Rialto Bridge. And soon, you\u2019ll be able to make the trek to mountainous Brembana Valley in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[104],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crestnetwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/branded4-1024x576.jpeg\")
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