Upscale Taste

by Jonathan McGaha | July 24, 2014 12:00 am

In the midst of the rugged beauty of the wine growing region around Skaha Lake in British Columbia, Canada, the Painted Rock Estate Winery Tasting Room offers a refined contrast that complements the scenery and creates a distinctive brand image. Smooth metal panels wrap curvilinear forms and invite visitors into a simple entry space that then explodes outward to reveal the beauty of the mountains and lake.

Dominic Unsworth, Fallowfield Design + Development, Kaleden, British Columbia, has years of experience designing buildings in the wine industry. But this project was unique, because his home is across the lake and the building would become part of his personal landscape. “More than anything,” he says, “I didn’t want to take away from the landscape. I didn’t want to overwhelm the property with some sort of contrasting form. That led to the direction of putting something on the property that was simple and easily adaptable to the situation.”

The design is relatively simple. “It came together as two swooping forms,” Unsworth says. “The only issue was how to clad them. The easy solution was the obvious choice for us.” Unsworth specified 2,400 square feet of 4-mm Alucobond aluminum composite material (ACM) panels from 3A Composites USA Inc., Statesville, N.C. “With such simple forms, we had to be sure the fabrication tolerances were high and we weren’t distracting from the form by the product. We needed to make sure there was some longevity in the product as well.”

Painted Rock Estate Winery was founded in 2004 on land that had been one of the largest apricot orchards in North America, but had been relatively unused from more than 50 years. The winery was new and wanted to differentiate itself as an upscale brand. When it came time to building a tasting room, the focus was more on an event space than a simple tasting room. “We wanted to make it as flexible as we could,” Unsworth says. “Not entirely wine focused but more event focused.”

The simple forms of the building complement the public’s first impression as a sophisticated, upscale brand. “The whole experience of the winery,” says Unsworth, “is hidden until you enter the building. More than anything, we want to pay homage to a piece of land that rested unused for so many years.”

The selection of the cladding was based on its relation to the environment around it. The Seafoam Metallic color was especially important. “With this particular cladding,” Unsworth says, “it goes through a natural range of colors through greens and blues and grays.” The metallic elements work with the setting.

An even more obvious reflection of the setting was the specification of the Alucobond naturAL material in the Reflect finish, which clads two sections of the building. Those sections mirror the mountains and lake that surround the winery and present the building as both part of and separate from that environment.

“The most innovative people in the valley are winery owners,” says Unsworth. “So working with them lends a bit of excitement.” Unsworth completed the conceptual design phase in a burst of creativity on a Sunday afternoon while sitting at his kitchen table. “We wanted to build a project that is enduring, but in a unique way,” he explains. “We didn’t want to take the architecture into forms that are cliché. We wanted to take things into the next generation of wine making.”

The simple forms and inspired cladding create a building the judges recognized as a dynamic complement to a beautiful setting, earning the Painted Rock Estate Winery Tasting Room the Metal Architecture Design Award in the smooth metal wall panels category.

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Painted Rock Estate Winery Tasting Room, Penticton, British Columbia, Canada

Completed: September 2013
Total square footage: 1,600 square feet
Building owner: Painted Rock Estate Winery
Architect: Fallowfield Design + Development, Kaleden, British Columbia, www.fallowfield.ca[1]
General contractor: Greyback Construction Ltd., Penticton, www.greyback.com[2]
Metal panel fabricator: Keith Panel Systems Co. Ltd., Vancouver, British Columbia, www.keithpanel.com[3]
Metal panel installer: Laing Roofing Ltd., Kelowna, British Columbia, www.laingroofing.com[4]
Metal wall panels: 3A Composites USA Inc., Statesville, N.C., www.alucobondusa.com[5]

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/upscale-taste/

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