The invisible architecture of manufacturing: inside Franke’s factory in Sassoferrato

We tend to observe industrial architecture through the lens of production, efficiency, and logistics. Yet, just like a house, a school, or a cultural center, a factory is first and foremost a lived-in space. Every day, hundreds of people move through corridors, workstations, common areas, and production departments. They interact with machines, technologies, and processes, but above all with a built environment that shapes their wellbeing, their safety, and the way they work. Thinking about how people inhabit these places therefore means questioning the very meaning of architecture itself. In recent decades, the concept of “human capital” has become firmly embedded in economic and managerial vocabulary. A term that the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman viewed with suspicion, seeing in it the risk of reducing people to resources to be optimized, enhanced, and made competitive. In Sassoferrato, the issue inevitably arises, but takes on a different form. Here, the value attributed to people seems to translate into concrete choices regarding safety, training, and the quality of the working environment, suggesting an industrial model in which human capital is not merely a performance indicator, but a structural component of the production project.

This reflection emerges clearly when visiting Franke Home Solutions’ Sassoferrato plant, a division of the Franke Group specializing in integrated kitchen systems. Here, two complementary yet distinct souls coexist, best representing the company’s strategy: Franke, the global brand that fully embodies the identity of a system provider, and Faber, the air expert. Located in the hills of the Marche region, about seventy kilometers from Ancona, this production center dedicated to the manufacture of extractor hoods, cooktops, and hob extractors offers an interesting insight into how contemporary industry is attempting to interpret and reshape the relationship between people and production. Domus spoke with Giorgio Rossi, Operations Director of the plant—opened in 1989—which today covers a total of 76,000 square meters and represents one of the group’s main centers of excellence for domestic air treatment.

Sassoferrato is a small town perched between the eastern slopes of the Apennines and the Sentino valleys, in a striking natural setting of karst caves—such as the famous Frasassi caves just a few kilometers away—and wide views over cultivated fields and forests. Its historic center is rich with stone houses, churches, and medieval palaces, revealing the layered historical stratifications that have accumulated over time up to the present day.

But Sassoferrato is also an industrial town. Together with nearby Fabriano, where Franke Home Solutions recently opened its new showroom, it belongs to a region whose manufacturing identity has long been shaped by household appliances and paper production. It is geographically peripheral to Italy’s major manufacturing and logistics corridors, yet it continues to generate specialised expertise and attract investment.

Giorgio Rossi

“We are in a territory that, on paper, is disadvantaged,” Rossi admits, “but here there is a strong sense of attachment among people.” The peripheral location, which might appear as a limitation, becomes an asset: the connection with the territory generates a virtuous exchange, made of skills accumulated over time. In a manufacturing context characterized by increasing labor mobility, it is perhaps precisely this permanence that represents one of the plant’s key competitive advantages.

“Our processes, our digitalization, and our automation will be replicated somewhere in the world. People will not,” explains the Operations Director with a certain pride. Around 300 people work at the plant, and much of the investment in recent years has focused not only on technological innovation, but also on training, upskilling, and improving working conditions. The centrality of people finds its most concrete expression in the issue of safety, defined by the company as “the necessary precondition before any business value.”

Rossi adds: “We work so that our people return home safe and sound, exactly as they arrived in the morning.” Companies certified under UNI ISO 45001—the international standard providing guidelines on occupational health and safety—ensure a high-level health and safety management system, typically ranging from 300 to 1,000 accident-free days. This past January, the plant reached 1,500 days without incidents. A result achieved through technological investment, strict operational procedures, and extensive training activity totaling over 4,000 hours in the past year. To underline the importance of the issue, Franke has dedicated an entire day within the plant exclusively to safety. Beyond the numbers, the result reflects an approach that considers human wellbeing not as a consequence of productivity, but as one of its starting conditions.

Over time, the plant has kept its external shell largely unchanged—apart from the installation of 3,850 solar panels, which today generate around 45% of the factory’s energy needs—while internally it has been repeatedly transformed through a series of re-layouts that have adapted processes and production lines to the evolution of products and markets. An architecture that is constantly evolving, which must necessarily adapt and adjust without losing its identity. In recent years, Sassoferrato has accelerated its transition toward Industry 5.0, the new European production paradigm that, building on Industry 4.0 digitalization, places human centrality and environmental sustainability at its core. Franke responded first with process digitalization, then sequencing, and finally the creation of a Digital Twin Factory: a virtual replica of the entire plant that enables scenario simulation, optimization of activities, and improved operational performance.

In this system, artificial intelligence enters as a support tool, not a replacement. Even in production contexts, “AI cannot be considered a substitute technology for humans, but rather a technology that supports them,” Rossi tells Domus. In Franke’s case, technology does not eliminate work but transforms it, shifting value toward skills that are increasingly difficult to automate: adaptability, problem-solving, experience, and process knowledge. That is why, to describe the future of industry, the first law of thermodynamics—nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed—is perfectly fitting: “For Franke, this means a new diversification of work.”

Also transformed less than a year ago is the Fabriano site, about 20 km from Sassoferrato, where Franke Home Solutions inaugurated a new showroom that spatially translates what happens inside the plant. At the entrance, immediately recognizable, is a slatted steel wall forming the backdrop to Franke’s white-on-red logo, now a distinctive element across all brand stores.

More than a conventional product exhibition, the space tells the story of the expertise behind every stage of production, with a focus on the “Air” element. In over 650 square meters and more than 130 exhibited products, the showroom presents hoods and induction systems both individually and within kitchen environments, staging what feels like a journey through the history of the extractor hood—for professionals, architects, and consumers alike. Visitors are welcomed by the Franke brand, revealing its vision as a system provider through the Mythos Masterpiece collection. Alongside other elements of the range (sinks, taps, cooktops, and accessories), the Mythos Masterpiece hoods take center stage, in an aesthetically harmonious dialogue thanks to sophisticated Gold finishes.

The journey through the element of air continues with the Mythos system, an active and fully functional kitchen designed not only to communicate the concept of integrated solutions in an immediate and engaging way, but also to transform the space into an ideal setting for events. Ensuring clean and pure air is the T-Shelf Evolution island hood, one of the most advanced expressions of integration between furniture and technology.

Franke’s expertise in extraction technologies is also showcased through the new 2gether induction hob platform, one of the most advanced expressions of integration between extraction, design, and smart technologies, highlighting the growing convergence between appliances and domestic architecture. In a single compact unit, these products combine cooking and extraction with high performance and maximum aesthetic cleanliness, meeting the needs of those seeking discreet, quiet, space-saving technological solutions. The “secret” behind their technology is revealed by the most scenographic and at the same time explanatory element of the entire showroom: a large frosted glass cube which, once activated by remote control, becomes transparent, revealing technical components that are usually hidden, showing airflow paths and different installation modes.

The showroom presents the many interpretations of Franke’s extractor hoods: from Built-In models designed to integrate into kitchen architecture and ensure maximum performance—including the Drip Free induction hoods that prevent condensation—to models equipped with the patented K-Link technology designed to create an intelligent connection between hob extractors and extractor hoods, as well as Vertical, T-Shape, and Ceiling versions. Here, quality is not communicated through data or technical performance, but through an experience that allows visitors to understand hidden complexity—the same goal behind the Technology Room, where motors, filters, lighting systems, and electronic components are displayed separately, almost like artifacts from a technical atlas. The journey then leads to the area dedicated to the Faber brand, which within Franke Home Solutions represents the highest expression of know-how in air treatment. 

Alongside the latest models, such as the Modular hood—drawing attention with its two side modules integrated into the main body and distinguished by its flexible design—there are also products that embody the brand’s core heritage. Among them is Beat, one of Faber’s most iconic hoods, presented in the distinctive Dark Forest finish for the brand’s 70th anniversary, interpreting the product as both furnishing element and technical device.

As Dino Giubbilei, VP Marketing & Digital at Franke Home Solutions, explains, “air treatment is a design discipline that changes profoundly depending on geographical and cultural contexts, and each market has different needs.” In the United States, for example, extractor hoods tend to be larger to accommodate bigger kitchens and different usage patterns compared to Europe. In Northern Europe, thanks to the acquisition of the Swedish brand Futurum, Franke has developed centralized air treatment systems capable of serving entire residential buildings through a single extraction and ventilation system. From hoods lowered from the ceiling by remote control to models that literally disappear into kitchen spaces, Faber guides visitors through seventy years of expertise in air design, between tradition and innovation, looking toward the future.

Walking through Franke’s environments in Sassoferrato and Fabriano, the impression is that behind technological innovation and serial production, the most ambitious project may be something else: building a production environment capable of retaining skills, fostering belonging, and adapting to change. Perhaps this is where the factory returns to being an architectural theme. Not for the compositional or construction quality of the building, or its technical performance, but for its ability to organize relationships: between people, space, and technology. In a less well-served infrastructural territory, it is this network of relationships that explains why the plant continues to grow. And why, even today, industry can still be read as a human project.