Two buildings, two commissions, one client

The project

A research building and then a production plant for plant-derived active substances for medicinal use, on one estate at Pegões. Architecture, fifteen engineering disciplines and both construction contracts were ours. Photographed from the air one hundred and sixteen times between the empty field and the finished campus.

What we were responsible for

Two buildings on one estate, commissioned separately: first the research building, then the production plant. What they make is plant-derived active substances for medicinal use, and that single fact writes most of the brief — the process needs classified rooms, one-way flows for people and materials that never cross, air handling that holds pressure differences between rooms, and a security and traceability layer that a warehouse of the same volume would not have. A building of this kind is an envelope wrapped around a set of rules, and the rules come from the licence rather than from the architect. Ours was the architecture, fifteen engineering disciplines drawn in house — thermal, acoustic, fire safety, water and drainage, HVAC, structure, urban water, gas, integrated security, building management, electrical, telecoms and the carbon calculation among them — and both construction contracts. The white volumes are precast concrete; the vertical timber at the entrance is the one place where the building stops being industrial, and it is there because that is where people arrive. The price agreed at the outset was the price at the end. This work crossed the 2021–2022 materials market and the figure did not move — not because the market was kind, but because a price we have given is a commitment, and we hold it.

Who built it

WALLNUT was responsible for both the design and the construction, under a single contract: one team answered for the drawings, the site and the handover.

What this does not include

The process equipment, the licensing of the operation itself and everything that happens inside the classified rooms are the client’s: we built the envelope and the systems that serve it, not the process. The land was already the client’s. Six of the eight images are aerial photographs taken by us during the works, dated by flight; two are renders of the design, and they are ours — drawn in house, not received.

Verified facts

Commissions from this client
2 the research building and the production plant, ordered separately
Engineering disciplines drawn in house
15 from thermal and acoustic to building management and the carbon calculation
Drone flights over the works
116 between February 2021 and September 2023
Aerial photographs in our record
30 242 the most complete construction record we hold
What we answered for
3 architecture, engineering and construction, under our own contracts
Price agreed at the outset
1 held to the end, through the 2021–2022 materials market