Painted Rock Estate Winery
6 december 2019
Project: Painted Rock Estate Winery, Penticton | Canada
Architect: Fallowfield Design + Development in association with Robert Mackenzie Architect Inc. | Canada
Fabricator: Keith Panel Systems Co. Ltd., Burnaby | Canada
Installer: Laing Roofing Ltd., Kelowna | Canada
Façade System: Tray Panels Special Design
Year of Construction: 2014
Product: ALUCOBOND® Custom Seafoam Metallic + naturAL Reflect
Photos: Carey Tarr
THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS
On the shores of Lake Skaha (British Columbia), there is an exceptionally beautiful place: a small steeply sloping plateau stretches out towards the sun and the lake, sheltered from the wind by the mountains. The sides of the mountain and the lake surface reflect light, radiate warmth and mitigate the differences in temperature. The terroir combines clay, sand, volcanic ash and gravel soils, offering Painted Rock Winery the ideal wine-growing conditions for excellent wines. Neat rows of vines stretch out to the west over the bluff and draw the eye to the lake and beyond. Since a good wine reflects the environment where it is made more than almost any other product, it stands to reason that this environment should play a pivotal role in the design of the new building. Dominic Unsworth, architectural designer, was commissioned by the winegrower to design a wine-tasting and events pavilion. The wine-tasting room looks out through a long glass façade, over a patio to the vineyards and the lake behind them. It is a space which flows visually into the landscape, and when the glass frontage is open, the flow is also spatial. Not only the building’s spine, consisting of a long east and short north façade, but also the geometry of the entire building honour the landscape. The reflective, cool metal skin amongst the green vines symbolises the interdependencies between wine production, this building and the natural conditions of this environment: ALUCOBOND® panels in Seafoam Metallic offer a tinted reflection of the weather and seasons and keep the building attuned to the changing landscape. At the rear of the building, the wings at the north and east are tipped with ALUCOBOND® naturAL Reflect panels and capture images of the scenery on the façade. Even before guests to the vineyard catch sight of the wine plateau, they can see the mountains, the clouds and the sun reflected in its surface. As surprising as the reflective surfaces used here might be, they have long since become a common sight in viticulture: stainless steel funnels, presses and fermentation vats. Not only the wine but also the façade developed to showcase it reveal all the most important ingredients for the award-winning Painted Rock wines.