The FAMAR Pharmaceutical and Cosmetics plant is located in Avlon, on the Athens-Thessaloniki National Road, 48km north of Athens. The 70000m² site was acquired from Pfizer in 1993. On this site had already been built an office building, a pharmaceutical plant, two warehouses, an energy building and a feed supplement unit. All these buildings were designed at various periods by our firm.
The Pfizer Pharmaceutical Plant, completed in its original form in 1971, was the first multinational pharmaceutical plant built in Greece. For our firm it was the beginning of a long, and on-going, road of involvement with buildings related to the pharma industry.
As there were no other buildings in proximity of the 70000m² site bordering the main south-north National Road, the Pfizer complex immediately became a focal point for travellers speeding past. Given the element of viewing at speed, it was important to design simple forms with simple colours without overmuch sophistication.
The main building consisted of two, different in form but adjoining, entities – a lower administration section and a double-volume manufacturing and warehouse section. The energy building stands alone but is “read” together with the administration/production building as they both front the National Road. A feed supplement unit, located at the back of the site, completed the original set up.
Subsequently, over the past two decades, a number of extensions and additions of new buildings were designed and built as well as conversions of existing facilities to state-of-the-art production areas. They include a cosmetics manufacturing facility, manufacturing areas for penicillin, cephalosporin, oral and injectable forms and for health & beauty products. Also a packaging unit, warehouses, administration facilities, an employee restaurant and a waste treatment plant. The total surface area of all buildings is now 31150m².
Functional constraints demanded buildings of various sizes, shapes and heights. They were, furthermore, built over a very long time span and necessarily with different construction methods and budgets. With each new addition, the challenge was to ensure that the basic design concept was adhered to and that the volumetric expansions fitted into the overall composition, adding, wherever feasible, architectural value to the already existing buildings.
The bright blue metal panels of the warehouses, the silk-grey colour of the packaging and manufacturing buildings and the yellow windows, louvers and other metal elements, form a unified overall colour scheme. Landscaping was kept simple, the emphasis being on broad statements. Trees and shrubs are in clusters rather than planted individually, thus making the concept more easily understood from passing cars.
Design Team
Architects
Sgoutas Architects
Structural Engineers
P.C.Poulidis
MEP Consultants
A.Tsitsis
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Architects
Sgoutas Architects
Structural Engineers
E.Antonoulas & A.Alexopoulos
MEP Consultants
Tekem Ltd.
