A winery and public space connects with the landscape.
Located on a gradually sloped site in Napa, this project aims to facilitate the production of wine, to become a dynamic community space, and to display the raw and pastoral beauty of the surrounding landscape. The winery is divided into two functional areas including a floating volume which houses all the public activities and the remaining area dedicated to the production and storage of wine. Connecting these two programmatic zones is a tower of gabion blocks which facilitates the cross pollination of the two spaces.
In the interior of the gabion tower, a crystalline sculpture hangs from the top and refracts and distributes the light from the oculus into the surrounding area. Runoff water is stored for irrigation and geothermal units are located underneath the barrel storage ring. The top of the tower is perhaps the culmination of the winery’s connection with the landscape, as a recessed circular platform accommodates wine tasting and observation of the distant landscape from high above.