Ongoing project — design & construction
Industrial complex “HUTCHINSON“
Phase I, II, III, IV, V, VI 2014-2024
designers — Uros jankovic and jelena petrov
Project managers - branko moraic, danijel rajkovic, nemanja zlatanovic
10 years! Mastering the process
In 2014 we were awarded the contract to develop a new production compound on a site in Ruma, Serbia, for the needs of the Hutchinson group. This was a result of bringing together our efforts to put into practice our „Design & Build“ approach and our Client’s trust and willingness to engage in an open-minded and dynamic analysis of the needs of the production process. Uniting of responsibilities of Designer with those of Contractor became very early our strategic goal which we reached, for the first, time in this project.
Being given the freedom to analyze the requirements of the program to be designed together with the Client in an open and constructive dialog put us in the position to come as close as we ever did to complete the command of design and construction processes. This also meant an important responsibility for assuring the financial soundness of the project despite several important changes in the scope of the brief. Coping with the evolving requirements and opening of new possibilities made us start looking at the potential of prefabrication in general and pre-stressed concrete truss elements in particular.
The site as a whole became a testing ground for possibilities of a very reduced number of building elements and procedures practically eliminating the need for detailing.
In phase one of the compound, we were still working with a hybrid structural system in which steel and pre-stressed elements were on a par with each other. After finalizing this phase, it was proven that, in terms of efficiency in design and construction, steel was no match for prestressed concrete at this scale.
Now, facing phase four after covering 23.500m2, we can say that this sequence of projects represents a kind of statement on the nature of the joint effort of the Client, the Designer, and the Contractor to meet the needs of a production process most efficiently and coherently.