The architecture firm BIG realized, for the outdoor furniture maker Vestre, the Plus factory. In a Norwegian forest, near the village of Magnor, on the Swedish border, the cross-shaped building features four double-height wings, each hosting a different stage of the production process. The central area is dedicated to office spaces and at its center houses an internal courtyard.

“Constructed in just eighteen months, the 7,000-square-metre factory is made mostly from wood and stores 1,400 tons of carbon dioxide in its structure made of PEFC-certified cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glued-laminated timber (glulam),” Vestre said.

The building combines energy-efficient Passivhaus strategies with a streamlined, robot-assisted production line – which compared to a conventional factory should reduce the energy consumption by 90 per cent. Furthermore, the heating and energy demand will be partly met thanks to 900 solar panels on the rooftop and 17 geothermal wells and heat pumps hidden behind the walls, in order to capture excess heat generated from the production process.