Discovered by archaeologists in civilizations as old as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, fritted glass is hardly a new technology. Yet thanks to its energy-saving abilities and the smooth, gradient aesthetic it produces, fritted glass has seen a rebirth in contemporary architecture.
Frit itself is a ceramic component that can be laid out into an assortment of patterns, most typically consisting of dots or lines. These patterns can then be silk-screened onto annealed glass using frit paint. Then, the glass is fired in a tempering furnace, which strengthens and improves the safety of the glass under thermal stress. The resulting product is glass of determined transparency that, when used in building facades, can reduce solar heat gain and even make buildings more visible and less deadly for birds.
While fritted glass can be used in many different ways, its most common aesthetic is a highly stylized one, with architects using frit to blur away the joints between glass panels (like in the Whitney Museum), create controlled views of higher transparency out a building (Frank Gehry’s IAC Building) or to produce a graphic statement (Snohetta’s Student Learning Center at Ryerson University). Many other high-style materials in recent history (think gold-tinted glass or brightly-colored marble) have eventually become seen as dated or gaudy, and therefore relegated to simply a trend. Has fritted glass returned to architecture for good, or is it destined to be seen as a fad?
Here are some exemplary projects to help you come to a decision:
This previously unpublished interview with Hans Hollein was conducted in July 2009 by Sanam Samanian (in collaboration with Parisa Kohbodi); Hollein passed away in 2014.
It was 2009, my first time in Vienna and I felt at home—as if I knew the city, its elegant architecture and its profound understanding of life. Vienna is quiet. It doesn’t make any noise about itself or ask for validation from the world; and when I walked into the studio of Hans Hollein it became clear that neither does he.
A a recent graduate of architecture school, I was trying to make it as a writer in the industry. With a bright friend, colleague and then-student from Waterloo University, we hopped on trains and traveled from country to country. In retrospect, I was probably looking for conversations with those I respected. I was looking to understand how they started their careers and what they were exploring. And I had no idea then that this may be the last interview with Mr. Hans Hollein, the man responsible for some of architecture history’s key postmodern buildings: the Austrian Embassy Building in Berlin, the Glass and Ceramics house in Tehran, and the Retti Candle Shop in Vienna. His Pritzker Prize was given to him before I was born, yet he began answering my questions as if I were an old friend.
Sanam Samanian: The Pritzker focuses on humanity in architecture; has the award changed anything in your architecture since receiving it?
Hans Hollein: It is the most important award in architecture; it is the Nobel Prize of architecture. I was the seventh award winner at that time and it was on its way to becoming the leading prize in architecture. Actually I may have been the last Pritzker award winner to receive a sculpture by Henry Moore.
[He points at the sculptural piece sitting on his mantel.]
For me it was certainly important, but I have won many more important prizes before.
SS: Which one has been most memorable?
HH: My very first building, a candle shop in Vienna, won an award three months after the opening of the building. It was $25,000 which was bigger than cost of the building. I didn’t get a big fee for the shop, so the award helped and also people were just fascinated that you could get an award that is more expensive than the building.
Tabaktrafik. Designed by Hans Hollein. Image by Thomas Ledl and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
SS: Tell me about why you became an architect.
HH: I started working in architecture very early. When I was in Chicago I was very interested in skyscrapers, and had new ideas about skyscrapers , and I first started my own practice in 1964—one year prior to finishing my first commission. And then of course the Pritzker was given to me not much later.
SS: Did it coincide with any specific project?
HH: As you know, the Pritzker is not given to any specific building, but I got it right after I finished the Abteiberg Museum. I tried a new approach to architecture in that project, and I think it was honored by the Pritzker, as Frank’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain was honored for his Pritzker prize.
SS: Did it change anything regarding how you practice architecture?
HH: It was encouraging. I immediately wanted to start an enormous new office.
SS: How did you go about that?
HH: I established a great connection with the United States and tried building in different parts of the world.
SS: Kenneth Frampton has stated that you were always comfortable in the theatrics of architecture. What do you think about that?
HH: Not really, I mean I am sort of in agreement and disagreement with him, and it’s not a question of theatrics.
HH: In the Venice Biennale—the first time I was there—I participated as an artist, not as an architect, which was long before I began working as an architect. I was an Austrian commissioner for the arts.
SS: How did that role did influence your architecture practice?
HH: I have always tried to look at architecture through an artistic lens. Art is the link between an era to the next. Modern art had a big influence on postmodern architecture.
Saturn Tower Vienna. Image by Robert F Tobler and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
SS: That’s right. Your work, particularly, seems to be a link between traditional and postmodern architecture. Do you think it’s because you were trained in a traditional manner and practiced in the postmodern era?
HH: My academic years were spent in Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, as well as Illinois Institute of Technology and Berkley University. In Berkeley I completed my masters’ degree. There was a rather strong future-forward period there. There was also a very strong emphasis on traditional architecture and values. I also remember that during my time at Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, there was small group with a very interesting tendency for exchanges between between Eastern and Western approaches.
SS: What kind of exchanges?
HH: Ideas.
SS: How did you take part in that?
HH: I went to Sweden which was, at that time, a very progressive country in architecture; and it was also a country that didn’t suffer through the war. Vienna was a devastated city. During that time you didn’t have easy access to information as you do today. I mean there were books and magazines, but in that way I was looking to not continue the traditional curriculum.
SS: How did you explore the non-traditional?
HH: It came to be a question of city-building and architectural interventions.
SS: Any specific cities?
HH: We explored London, Tokyo, not New York but Chicago; and of course we looked at Vienna.
SS: How do you explore architecture these days? Do you have a method?
HH: I sit and think. It depends on the project, the specific site, the specific situation.
SS: Do you still enjoy it?
HH: Yes. I never wanted to be an architect that would drop his buildings anywhere in the world, but wanted to understand their situation, relationship to the site, to the history and the culture of the people. So, I have built in many countries and different civilizations.
HH: Well it’s complicated. In the United States the client comes to you and wants a building by you. But many important buildings in Europe, even if they are privately funded, need to go through a public competition. In Europe I have difficulty getting direct commissions. In United States, however, there are better opportunities where the client and architect meet each other before and discuss the project. In a competition format you never meet the client beforehand.
SS: You have had a long and successful career in architecture. What do you find has evolved in the past 30 years?
HH: Well one thing is the amount of the information. 30 years ago you had to meet someone like Philip Johnson by accident in an office of a magazine and then make connections. So, I think access to information has changed things. Also time had become faster somehow, if that makes any sense.
SS: Time is relative. I get that.
HH: It also slows down sometimes, doesn’t it? Depending on the cultural and financial situation of a place. I think it also changes when you leave your hometown.
HH: Yes. Very early in my life I tried to get out of my hometown and traveled to Scandinavian countries and the United States for two years. My first professorship was in the United States and the Vienna Academy. At that time communications over a long distance was very costly.
SS: As a practitioner and professor, do you think architectural education is missing anything these days?
HH: In North America, there are some very good universities and some not really good ones. Because of communications and access to information, some students are very informed these days. Same with Europe, I guess.
SS: Are there any architects that have impressed and influenced you?
HH: When I was in Chicago Mies Van Der Rohe really inspired me. He was maybe why I went to Chicago. At that time, in Europe there was only one book about his work.
SS: Are there any contemporary architects whose work you enjoy?
HH: A lot of friends from my generation in the United States, I know many of them well.
Austrian Embassy in Berlin. Image by by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra and licensed under CC BY 2.0
SS: If you look back to the buildings you have designed are there any of them you enjoyed more than others?
HH: That’s like if you ask a father or mother which one of their children they like more.
SS: I know. The difference is you can probably be honest whereas parents won’t be able to be.
[He laughed for a few minutes.]
HH: There are some key projects and buildings that unfortunately never got realized. I have no regrets for any of them. To me, the candle shop in Vienna is very dear. I also worked on a Guggenheim in Iraq, it never got built unfortunately.
SS: Are there any projects that you wish to do still?
HH: I’d like to transform a medieval castle to be used for all kind of strange purposes like a museum, an auditorium or concert hall.
SS: What do you think your projects, the spaces you create, do for people?
HH: At the ten year anniversary of one of my buildings all these people, children and teachers and parents of the children would come to me and tell me how they enjoyed the building in different ways throughout the years. That was very important to me. It was a great day and a testimony to what a building could do for people.
Following the announcement that the swimming pool—”one of Australia’s greatest cultural symbols—will form the foundation of the Australian Exhibition at the 2016 Venice Biennale, more information has been revealed about what will be presented.
According to the organisers, “eight prominent cultural leaders from various fields have been selected to share their personal stories, using the device of the pool as a platform to explore the relationship between architecture and Australian cultural identity.” These include Olympic swimmers Ian Thorpe and Shane Gould, environmentalist Tim Flannery, fashion designers Romance was Born, authors Christos Tsiolkas and Anna Funder, Indigenous art curator Hetti Perkins and musician Paul Kelly.
“Each narrative”, they continue, “touches on a different scale the scale of the body to the scale of the continent and together all reveal the myriad meanings and impacts of the pool on Australian society; as a means to enable survival in an unforgiving landscape, to tame our environment, to provide spaces that facilitate direct contact with nature, to create democratic social spaces, but also spaces for healing racial and cultural division.”
“Recognisably Australian, The Pool is joyful, celebratory and accessible. It is also a setting for the sharing of stories, tales of personal and collective struggle, of community building and transformation and refusal of the status quo. The Pool as an architectural device delimitates a social edge and a personal edge. It is this metaphorical and literal edge condition that we want to explore and share with the audience at Venice. The pool represents a condition of surplus and of scarcity in the same form, which makes it very interesting.” The aim of the exhibition is to step outside the architect-to-architect discourse to “show how a familiar, common object, the pool, is in fact pregnant with cultural significance, it is both artefact and catalyst of change.”
Surrounded by parkland and built on a former industrial site, the new JTI Headquarters is located in a Geneva district home to prestigious international organisations. A collaboration between the firm’s architecture, structural engineering and interior teams; the competition-winning design consolidates four existing JTI premises within a single landmark building and demonstrates SOM’s commitment to integrated design, sustainability and innovative workplace solutions.
The architecture draws references not only from its immediate context, but also Lake Geneva and the Alps, establishing a strong identity amongst its illustrious neighbours while responding sensitively to its low-rise context. The building’s form was dictated by the shape of the challenging triangular site and the necessity to maximise useable space. By elevating the north eastern and southern corners of the building, a public courtyard is carved out, creating permeability through the site, opening it up to the local neighbourhood and facilitating direct pedestrian connections to a local transport hub. The impressive cantilevered space and clear-spans of up to 60m and 75m respectively, provide the building with its unique elevations and also create a unique sense of arrival for employees and visitors.
A continuous circulation route loops through the building – from the entrance lobby to the panoramic restaurant – connecting open-plan offices, 66 meeting rooms, 31 collaborative work areas, 23 coffee points, deli, business centre and auditorium, fitness center, 2 roof terraces and a number of social spaces. This pathway is distinguished by the use of a consistent colour and furniture palette employing regionally sourced materials with robust finishes. A series of curated installations by internationally renowned artists Liam Gillick and Sol LeWitt meanwhile serve as social hubs and way-finding tools for connectivity.
The interior design concept maximises both vertical and horizontal interconnectivity, achieving the client’s desire to create a social and collaborative community space for its 1,000+ employees. SOM developed tailor-made workplace models for use throughout JTI’s headquarter space and the firm were able to break down corporate silos and contribute to the creation of a seamless workplace network, providing long-term flexibility to accommodate JTI’s evolving needs. The open-plan space was achieved using an innovative engineering design solution; a peripheral torsional tube structural steel system allowing for column-free floor plates spanning 18 metres.
The building’s innovative Closed Cavity Façade (CCF) was designed in collaboration with Josef Gartner GmbH as a unitises a curtain wall system which responds to the demands of seasonally changing external climatic conditions whilst providing exceptional views out and maximising daylight penetration into the workspace. The floor-to-ceiling glazed panels measuring 3m wide x 4.2m high consist of triple glazing on the inner layer and single glazing on the outer, forming a cavity with a fabric roller blind in between. The panels are sealed and equipped with a pressurised supply of filtered and dehumidified air which prevents condensation and heat build-up inside the cavity. The CCF system prioritises occupant comfort and reduces the whole building’s energy demand and carbon emissions, helping it to meet the requirements of European Energy Directives and the Swiss Minergie sustainability rating. The system represents one of the best performing all glass façade systems in SOM’s history.
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The building has been widely recognised for its positive impact on the community, where it is hoped the aspirational design will be a catalyst for future development in the area. The project, which ranks among the most sustainable in Europe, also includes a 1,162 m2 day-care centre for 104 children and 8,162 m2 of new public space, which was built in collaboration with the City of Geneva.
From the architect. The rapidly erected country house, industrial methods of designing and building are applied to private housing, the dimensions multiple of glued panels in accordance with GOST, it has allowed to realize the project under a key basis in the period less than 4 months. The purposes – to enter a low-rise housing in a landscape, to make it invisible as much as possible. The style of the 30 – 40s of the last century taken as the basis for design.
The main component of the orientation of the house is insolation and geomancy: taken into account all the directions, energy outputs for the owners of the houses, the garden of stones with the astral triangles and Any interior, as it is known, is the result of joint creative work of the architect and the the customer, in which aesthetic center-reading and way of life of the client are not her principal role than creative position of the author. The ability to understand the customer, finding the artistic form of the realization of his wishes, is an important make up of professionalism. So интерье- constructed, designed for architects their homes and offices, are of particular interest.
They are something more, the interior: as a rule, it is a creative the Manifesto of the author. Deprived of necessary of subordinate its submission to the Pro-крустово bed posed by the client for the Duch, the architect gets the same freedom, as an artist or writer, whose work much less dependent on external interference the government.
When designing your own house, AB- the Torah does not have to take into account the way of life, habits and ideals of other people: instead of this, it implements its own presentation the population of space and time, the ideal a modus vivendi, and optimal ratio-cientific research Institute of architecture and landscape, the volume and of the interior. Designing for themselves, style tor is beyond the scope of professionalism in the space of pure creativity. Therefore frequently such projects are true masterpieces. A typical example of this – this country the house belonging to architect Sergey Наседкину. When designing your own house, the author tought not only to create a comfortable living space, but and realize their art the principles. Being staunch supporter of the ideals of the modernist architecture, Sergey Nasedkin sure that эстетическийоблик the building should be logical in the establishment of its functions and design – conditioned the technology. In addition, the architecture of the building were implemented the principles of «Organic architecture» of Frank Lloyd Wright: a concise the rectangular shape of volume, its horizontal proportions and simple, but expressive of- делка is an example of how creation of the man can become a harmonic addition organic landscape.
However, this project is not just pastiche by the architecture of 30-40 years of the twentieth century. «Indeed relatively, in the design were using a characteristic of the directions of the methods and parties, ” argues Sergei Nasedkin, ” But in our days there are a lot of new technologies and materials that are unknown in the days of behind the birth of modernist architecture, which, no doubt, have had a significant impact on the stylistic decision.
Architect In Charge: He Zhe, James Shen, Zang Feng
Design Team: Sean Phillips, Charlotte Yu, Wayne Liu, Gao Tianxia, Leo Chazalon
Client: Lane Crawford
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Courtesy of PAO
Courtesy of PAO
From the architect. To celebrate its 165th anniversary, Lane Crawford invited People’s Architecture Office to create installations that explore vertical living in the future. Inspired by the hidden ventilation shafts and mechanical structures that support the comforts of modern life, PAO turns buildings ‘inside out’, exposing to view the large metal ducts found in the interior of buildings.
Courtesy of PAO
In this imagined tubular living, horizontal spaces are suspended in the air, branching off from vertical towers. The standardized parts are factory-made and assembled on site. Their raw industrial surfaces contrast with the pristine interior of the upscale retail store. Metallic tubes house staircases, become rooms and tunnels with views from above, oversized speakers, and tubular knots that serve as furniture.
Courtesy of PAO
Courtesy of PAO
Tubular Living was installed in Lane Crawford stores in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. The installations featured furniture and lighting pieces designed by People’s Industrial Design Office.
The warehouse of Inagawa Reien will provide functional support to the administrative wing and chapel designed by David Chipperfield Architects and scheduled for completion in 2017. Although visitors will have no reason to enter the warehouse at all, its placement at the entrance to the cemetery grounds means that visitors will see this building first. Since all visitors will arrive by automobile, a concept that could contribute to people’s periodic visits to their family graves was considered for those brief moments spent passing by the warehouse.
The warehouse serves as the maintenance center for the entire property of the cemetery that extends to 150,000 square meters, and provides a car park, refrigeration unit for flowers, workshop space, and storage. The parking has clearance for the florist’s 2-ton truck that delivers cut flowers.
Elevation
Entry to the workshop is through a set of large sliding doors that can be fully opened, and has a considered arrangement with respect to the car park and refrigerator. When a large work area is required, drawing the sliding doors of the workshop fully open results in a single integrated space with the car park.
The warehouse has arranged its contents, so that frequently used items are respectively closer to the workshop entrance. Shelves and sink face the work tables, and provide a counter for creating offering sets, and tools to make the offerings. Portable altars and water pails are placed immediately behind. The second row arranges equipment like sprayers and lawn mowers, and in the back, stoves and anti-freezing agent that are seasonally limited in usage. For a durable finish structural plywood was used for the ceiling and walls, and bare concrete for the floor. These materials were also choices in regard to design concept, to leave their irregularity and texture exposed and available to eventually blend with the numerous items filling the warehouse.
The warehouse site occupies a corner of a ‘T’ intersection: From Prefectural Route 12, visitors to the cemetery turn into the grounds, and the driveway extends to the administrative wing to be located at the end. In order to save the initial high emotion of arrival for the administrative wing by David Chipperfield Architects, the warehouse visible at the point of entry is made in a form and with materials like the surrounding traditional farmhouses, blending discreetly into the landscape. Many nearby farmhouses have smoked-cedar siding and sloped, tiled roofing. The warehouse, therefore, also donned smoked cedar siding and a sloped roof for the arriving roadside view.
The departing view, however, cuts a completely different figure for the building. As the final landmark of the visit, the exterior walls from this vantage are finished with bengala red pigment (iron oxide) to invoke the image of a torii (distinctive gate to Japanese Shinto shrine) and provide a boundary between the spiritual and secular worlds. For those visitors who have paid their respects at the family grave, the motif offers passage from the emotions experienced at a cemetery to a return home to daily life via religious boundary.
The designed selection of smoked cedar siding and bengala red are assertive in their change over time. Bengala is paint used in Japan for centuries with insect- and decay-proofing qualities. Its usage in shrines and temples relates to a belief in its harm-protecting charm.
Vertically lapped wall sections enable the clean transition between smoked cedar and bengala walls according to the arrival and departure views. The sections appear like a saw-toothed layout in the plan view. The bengala-painted wall sections are gapped and fitted with red glass to draw faint red-colored light inward from the north side.
Plan
The wall sections of the car park for the florist’s truck are also vertically lapped to obscure the parking and workspace in back and to provide a walkway, ventilation, and natural lighting.
The east-west diagonal forms the ridge of the four-cornered roof, which slopes at two different angles. The roof height at the southeast is held down to respect neighboring housing along the prefectural route, so the slope is steep. The car-park side secures the height required for the truck, with a gentle roof slope to keep the building height down. The steep-sloped roof on the south side forms a steep ceiling, which reflects light entering from openings on the south side and transfers the natural light throughout. The gentle slope on the north side is dyed red from the light entering the red window slits. The two natural light colors combine to provide a touch of brilliance to the otherwise plain warehouse interior for those working inside all day.
From the architect. The American Enterprise Group (AEG) national headquarters is an eight-story office building in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. The venerable building, designed by SOM’s Gordon Bunshaft, was completed in 1965 and received an AIA Honor Award for Architecture in 1967. In 1966, it was featured in LIFE magazine and deemed “the talk of the Midwest.”
The project is being considered for the National Register of Historic Places; improvements were made utilizing historic documents and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings.
The innovative rehabilitation reinforces the original design intent as follows:
Minimalism
This in an invisible rehabilitation. The 1966 LIFE magazine article stated the building had “No Fat.” The building’s original systems were meticulously integrated with the building architecture. The work required substantial demolition of walls and finishes which were obsessively and elegantly reconstructed to accommodate new systems, including the important addition of life-safety.
The original building meshed together workplace and AEG’s significant art collection — a museum within an office. The renovated space addresses human efficiency and evolving workplace standards with systems that enhance human productivity while making the art an integrated part of the experience.
This exposed cast-in-place and precast concrete building included many groundbreaking characteristics: an integrated mechanical system; indirect lighting; minimal windows on the east and west facades; north and south facades with expanses of glass; and substantial overhangs to maximize daylight and minimize heat gain. These concepts were preserved and augmented with energy efficient systems. On Levels 3 through 8, a custom thermally broken insulated glazing system was installed to match the profile, finish and tint of the original building. The Entrance and Second Levels remains and frames with panels of annealed clear glass as large as nine feet by eighteen feet.
Plan Entry Level
Section N-S
Floor Plan Level 2
Views
Advanced for its time, the minimal internal structure provides openness via ninety-foot clearspan. Transparent or minimal design elements including custom sliding glass door office enclosures and a new minimal and modern open-office system were designed to preserve the expanse and provide a modern workplace.
The original building systems were controlled by two thermostats, resulting in “…the experience of four seasons in one day.” Comfort was further compromised by inefficient, single-pane glazing. The rehabilitation replaced the 50 year-old mechanical, electrical, plumbing systems with energy efficient systems and added current life-safety systems. This involved redesigning the integrated duct system, an important visual expression found throughout the ceiling of the building to include air movement, acoustical absorption, lighting and fire-protection.
The $30,000,000 rehabilitation was completed within an extremely tight schedule. Design began in May 2014 and employees returned in August 2015.
“There are still plenty of good buildings lost, and plenty more that are … altered out of all resemblance to their original condition. But there is also a greater willingness than ever before to get to the essence of a work of architecture and to try to bring out once again the qualities it had when it was new.
From the Publisher: The April 2016 issue of a+u introduces 18 works by 12 architects from around the world. The issue begins with one of the masterpieces of modern residential architecture, the Kappe Residence, from Los Angeles in the 1960s. The other works, including houses, pavilions, and a church, differ in scale and program, but they share a common attitude which could be called a commitment to space that is a pure ad of remarkable beauty.
Contents
Feature: Poetry of Modesty
Ray Kappe The Kappe Residence
Column: The Kappe Residence: Hillside Pragmatism Amelia Taylor-Hochberg
Barkow Leibinger Fellows Pavilion – American Academy Berlin
Robbrecht en Daem architecten Dairy Gaasbeek
Robbrecht en Daem architecten Het Huis, Middelheimmuseum
Atelier Lise Juel Landstedet
Atelier Lise Juel Strandvilla
architecten de vylder vinck taillieu Famous
architecten de vylder vinck taillieu House Vos
Gabinete de Arquitectura – Solano Benítez Casa Abu
Hoidn Wang Partner Children’s Day Care
Hoidn Wang Partner Chair
General Architecture and Kod Arkitekter Villa Eder-Hederus
Johan Celsing The New Crematorium, The Woodland Cemetery
Johan Celsing Årsta Church
Christian Kerez House with a Lake View
Christian Kerez House with a Missing Column
Harquitectes House 1014
Valerio Olgiati Villa Além
Spotlight: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive Diller Scofidio + Renfro
From the architect. The Titus brothers reached out to MH Architects to explore the concept of a new winery facility located in Napa Valley in 2012. The client’s stated goal was to express the spirit of Titus Vineyards wine through the architectural components of the winery design. MH Architects responded with a series of design iterations before narrowing the focus toward a design that best matched the client’s needs. During the process, architect and client reviewed the basics of production flow, matched hospitality requirements with current trends in the wine tourism industry, and created a building aesthetic which captured brand identity. The design team worked closely to accommodate the complex layout of shiny fermentation tanks which catalyze anaerobic reactions under the same roof which hosts aesthetically-conscious guests with discerning palates.
Bordered by Silverado Trail to the east and the Napa River to the west, the 54-acre project site is located just north of St. Helena with views overlooking estate vineyards. Previously, an existing farm house accommodated occasional informal tastings on a picnic bench and wine was produced at a rented custom crush facility. The client wanted take advantage of the picturesque setting and integrate a tasting experience for an ever-growing clientele with a state-of-the-art production facility. The new building would enable Titus Vineyards to sell wine directly to their customers and engage those customers with the land where the grapes were originally grown and the process of the wine being made.
MH Architects discussed the winemaking process at length with winery staff in order to map out crucial adjacencies for production flow. Staff was forthcoming with technical requirements for all equipment. Necessary clearances were observed and efficient routing for all plumbing and electrical components were optimized. As the equipment was integrated into the floorplan, the building itself became a wine-making machine.
Sketch
As a 20,000 case production facility, Titus is generally considered a “boutique” winery where crafted production is emphasized over the volume of wine that is produced. Fruit is delivered directly to the Covered Crush area from flatbed trucks and dumped onto horizontal conveyances for cellar staff to remove any substandard grape clusters. After being processed by the destemmer, the grape “must” is pumped to 6000-gallon fermentation tanks in the adjacent Fermentation Room. During the next six weeks, glucose is converted to carbon dioxide, heat, and ethyl alcohol while the age-old process of fermentation is administered through a tightly-controlled process. Following crush and fermentation, the wine is then pumped into 60-gallon wood barrels stacked five racks tall where it will age for two years in the Barrel Storage Room.
Siting the building was complicated due to proximity to the Napa River. To mitigate flood risk, the winery was raised to sit atop on a 5- to 8-foot-tall earthen berm. In addition to avoiding high water, the elevated building pad afforded the new Tasting Room uninterrupted views over the surrounding vineyards to the Napa River and the wooded Mayacama Range beyond.
Because of the raised berm, every effort was made to reduce the vertical height of the structure and the profile of the building in general. The large roof spans at the Fermentation and Barrel Storage Rooms were achieved with flat metal trusses as opposed to sloped gables. Most of the perimeter walls of the building were constructed with tilt-up board-formed concrete. The formwork and rebar for the walls were laid out on 6-inch-wide boards to create a rich, striated texture. After curing, each of the concrete walls was “tilted up” 22-feet high and into place by crane. Because the walls were precast, special care was taken to coordinate imbedded metal anchors to receive the ends of the metal trusses in order to structurally interlock the roof and walls together.
The horizontal lines that define the board-formed concrete walls repeat in the Hospitality Room suspended ceiling, comprised of varied width and depth wooden slats. Glass blade LED light fixtures set between the slats maintain the linear theme. Offsetting the hard concrete floors and walls, the slatted ceiling baffles sound gently and mitigates acoustical resonance allowing intelligible conversation when multiple groups of guests are present. MH Architects also designed linear pendant fixtures over the Tasting Counter and in the individual Tasting Rooms. Suspended by pairs of minimal aircraft cables, the fixtures are comprised of rectilinear wooden blocks of alder to match the ceiling with an LED light slot on the bottom.
The distinction between the winery interior and the natural setting was intentionally blurred. Sliding glass Nana bi-fold doors span a 24-foot-wide opening between the Tasting Room and the exterior covered porch overlooking the vineyards to the west. The concrete floor and wood slat ceiling finishes continue uninterrupted between the interior and exterior. The Tasting Room space expands toward the covered porch and the crisp lines in the ceiling mirror the cultivated vineyard rows beyond.
During a tasting, guests may admire the view of the estate vineyards to the west or alternately observe the cellar staff hard at work in the Crush and Fermentation Rooms through a glass wall to the east. Flanked by grapevines and fermentation tanks, the winemaking process is integral to the guest experience. As wine production weaves with wine hospitality, the philosophy of the Titus Vineyards brand translates into built form.
Sig Nordal 