Our client was commissioned to design an innovative new winery and visitor centre within the heart of the English countryside. Although well-established on the continent, viticulture is a rapidly growing phenomena in the UK, with sparkling wine the focus of production.
The development of a new typology presented the practice with technical challenge: the winery, embedded within the unique landscape it occupied, was to embrace the highest BREEAM standards as well as overcoming air handling issues and developing a new way to span concrete to support vats. Such an atypical assignment required innovative solutions and out-of-the-box thinking.
Taste is critical in the wine industry – that’s why our client designed a winery that aptly blends both form and function, offering a refreshing and sustainable take on the local vernacular. To achieve BREEAM Excellent standards in a traditional barn structure is exceptionally difficult, necessitating a high-tech building which worked in concert with the landscape.
The winery is built into the natural contours, using the earth to offset thermal weaknesses caused by the open interior. As a reference to surrounding historic barns, a series of flint buttresses have been incorporated on the Eastern elevation. These buttresses have the benefit of creating architectural interest, reducing the mass of the elevation and supporting the proposed solar shading. The buttresses also help the building to integrate into the landscape, by gradually becoming retaining walls at the base and disappearing into the ground. To the west, these buttresses are used to conceal functional areas such as the plant room and fire escape. The proposal for a glazed gable end has been removed and replaced with a more considered fenestration design that significantly reduces the amount of glass, preventing excessive thermal heating and cooling
Meeting sustainability targets meant that typical air conditioning was out of the picture. Instead, the air handling unit has been specially adapted to provide varying air conditions within the structure, offering strictly controlled environments in some parts and ambient temperatures in others. These measures to making use of passive cooling, solar shading to increase comfort and reduce solar gain, and renewable technologies integrated into the design such as solar panels and air source heat pumps.
Our client worked with structural engineers to determine the best concrete flooring solution. As part of their revitalisation of winery typology, the floorspace was to be flexible and host vats and other equipment in different positions depending on the season. As the vats and pressing machine weighed up to 20 tons each and are not usually moved, the engineers were unsure whether it was possible to meet the client’s vision. However, in an iterative process, a bespoke solution was found which would provide the floor capacity needed within the unique design of the building. The concept included a reinforced concrete slab more than twice as thick as the industry standard supported by columns from the lower ground floor. To reduce the number of columns needed, a lightweight steel frame was developed to transfer load through the walls and buttressing. This ensured minimal obstruction within the building as well as optimising the vernacular feature of barn buttresses to provide structural support. Our client’s proposed winery provides a high-quality piece of architecture that is an innovative asset to the UK wine industry.
Jacob Kelman
