In Zurich there are 127 rainy days per year. So, since 1993 we have been ineffectively drenched 2’286 times. This changes in our new building, NŒRD. Here we use rain water to wash our tarps.
It’s not every day that people like us build their own F-actory. Especially in Zurich, where rentals are usually better fit for the next Lehman Brothers than the FREITAG Bros. But firstly, NŒRD is on a contaminated lot (why do you think it was still available?), secondly we share it with friends and third – hail to the workings of modern real estate investment schemes! – we are simply renting space in a building we conceived.
What’s important for us: After decaying Maag (the advent of musical halls, disco balls, corporatchicks and skyscrapers made us pack our bags), we wanted a F-actory that would fit our products: NŒRD is sustainably built, well insulated and recycles everything from rain water to the heat of a waste-recycling plant. According to expert calculations, saving water and energy will pay for the necessary investments in about, erm, 18 years. Anyway: NŒRD is big enough for us to keep most of the production chain right here – from design to washing to cutting to packing to sending. And NŒRD is dug firmly into Zurich city ground. Something we dig, too.
F2011 FREITAG FACTORY NŒRD:
Profile: sustainable, water-collection and cycling into tomorrow
Dimensions: 90000 x 64000 x 17000 mm
(LxBxH): 3544 x 2520 x 669 inches
Content: Washing machines, cutting tables, warehousing, computers and tons of tarps
Work force: 115 (of a total of 130)
The enormous water tank holds 369,000 quarts. It is filled with rainwater that filters through gravel in the rooftop garden and is fed into the tank by pipes. With a normal amount of annual rain in Zurich, the water tank provides enough water to wash all the dirty truck tarps we require.
Every year, 350 tons of used truck tarps are delivered to the F-actory. The FREITAG Truck Spotters keep their eyes open for the most beautiful tarps all over Europe.
When disassembling the tarps, all the grease is stripped away. The eyelets and anything else that we cannot reuse for manufacturing the bags are also removed. We send the tarp scraps, metal pieces and wood to individual recycling centres.
There is room for approximately 10 tarp pieces in the XXXL washing machine, which amounts to 110 to 130 pounds per wash cycle (at 149°F). The tarps are washed with water from the rainwater tank. After the first wash cycle, heat pumps remove the warmth from the dirty water and transfer it to the clean rainwater. The final rinse water from each wash cycle is collected and used again for the rinse cycle of the next load of tarps. The washed tarps are dried with cold air in a separate room.
The FREITAG Bag Designers are responsible for the design of the bags. They use a set of transparent templates to cut the tarps. The individually cut elements of the bag are labelled with numbers so that nothing gets mixed up during the sewing process. Sewing is the only step in the production chain that is done outside of the Noerd building. The FREITAG bags are sewn according to our instructions by longstanding partners in Switzerland and in the nearby countries of Portugal, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Tunisia.
Patterns are created in the Prototype Workshop based on the initial design ideas on paper and the first prototypes are sewn accordingly. These are usually made using white tarps so that the design of the new bag can be evaluated independently of its colour and pattern.
After being sewn, the bags undergo a strict quality control process in the F-actory. Then, the bags are packed into cartons and shipped to F-Dealers around the world.
There are more than 4,500 unique products to choose from at the FREITAG Online Shop. Every item is painstakingly photographed before it is featured online. You don’t have to worry about “buyer beware” here. Of course, if any misunderstanding arises, customers anywhere in the world can seek assistance from the FREITAG Online Shop Team.
Even though the REFERENCE bags have a monochromatic design, nothing about our basic recipe has changed. Every FREITAG bag is made from used truck tarpaulins. Just like the FUNDAMENTALS bags, each unique bag enjoys its moment in the spotlight on the 360-degree turntable at the photo station to ensure that every last inch of the bag can be examined and enjoyed.
When designing its offices, FREITAG looked long and hard for suitable office furniture but to no avail. So, we set about ourselves to develop a workspace tailored to the specific needs of the F-Crew. In cooperation with trusted partners, unique office furnishings were created. The industrial metalworking is more typical of production plants than of office furniture. All the furniture was made in Zurich.
The “Biopoints” in the FREITAG offices are the central recycling and waste disposal centres. Employees can separate and dispose of their garbage in an eco-friendly way - using bags made out of tarps, of course.
The FREITAG Family today includes around 150 employees. Of those, 115 work in the world’s tarpaulin capital in Zurich. With its 80,700-sq-ft area, it is so large that half of the F-Crew got lost on their way to this photo op.