Site
The process of selecting my site began with an understanding of wine production within the United States. Currently all 50 states produce their own wine, however California is the largest producer by far, responsible for 84% of the National Production. Not only is California a major producer of wine, but the quality of their wine rivals that of some of the most famous regions of France. The site for this project is located within the Santa Maria Hills of Santa Barbara County. The site can be accessed by Highway 101, a major thoroughfare between Los Angels and San Francisco. There are 3 large hills that make up the site with the highest peak being about 450’-0� above the road. The total area is 488 Acres. The site is currently zoned as agricultural, which is consistent with adjacent site uses. Previous plans for were city were developed by Santa Barbara County to utilize the site as a new landfill, a plan which luckily never came to fruition.
Program Being a winery, the program for this project revolves around the growing of grapes and production / distribution of wine. An understanding of the scale of the production in relation to the size of my site was crucial to understanding the sizes of spaces within my building. With approximately 300 acres of prime grape growing land on my site, the winery could yield up to 3,600 barrels of wine a year, which is equal to about 1 million bottles. This information allowed me to find the largest commercially available fermentors and dictated the size of the fermentation room, which as you can see on the adjacent diagram is the largest space in the building. Another crucial aspect to a winery in this region is the inclusion of amenities for visitors, such as tasting rooms, roof terraces, and gift shops. The world of wine is no longer just for the elite, and amenities such as these help to welcome a wide variety of users.
Case Study
Clos Pegase Winery - Designed by Michael Graves in 1984, located in Napa Valley, California. My big takeaways from this project were the very diversified program elements as well as the main organizational strategy, which separated public and private elements along an axis.
Case Study Odette Winery - Designed by Signum Architecture in 2014, located in Napa Valley, California.
This project inspired me in the way that it incorporated itself into a hillside by continuing the texture of the landscape on to the roof, along with solar panels for renewable energy.
Case Study Messner Mountain Museum - Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects in 2015, located in South Tyrol, Italy
This project showed me how a building can be embedded into a mountain with minimal disruption. By cutting and covering, you can avoid the use of explosives which can devastate a landscape.
Process Sketches
Process Sketches
Design Review
The final design review gave me a chance to receive feedback on the ideas that I had been formulating since the research review in the Fall. For my project, this focused around my overall site planning and building organization strategies. For the site immediately adjacent to the building, I focused on the development of an intensive roof garden that could be accessed directly from the parking lot. At this stage in the design, the parking lot itself was an after thought, but the underlying design of the roof garden stayed consistent until the final. As for the building plan, I wanted to focus on the organization of the program elements, and how that could reduce the water consumption for the building. This concept was achieved through the strategic stacking of spaces across the four floors of the building, allowing for gravity to do most of the work. The feedback for this review was generally positive, with some concerns about the scale of the building. The interior renderings showed a vast empty space, which left the building feeling cold and uninviting. Jurors gave several suggestions on how to reduce the scale of the building, while others believed that the addition of people and furniture would help to make the scale of the space more convincing.
Design Review
Design Review
Tech Review
Tech Review
Tech Review
Final Review
Final Review
Final Review
Final Review
Final Review
Final Review
Final Review
The feedback from my final review was overwhelmingly positive. Many of the jurors commented that renderings I displayed created an extremely inviting environment and was appropriate for California. The biggest area of concern from the jurors was the structure of the building, which admittedly, I was never able to fully resolve. This was my first time working with a concrete building, so even though I wasn’t completely successful, I feel as though I learned a lot.