"The inhumanity of our ulterior, asocial, superficial world immediately finds its aesthetic form here [in the desert], its ecstatic form. For the desert is simply that: an ecstatic critique of culture, an ecstatic form of disappearance. The grandeur of deserts derives from their being, in their aridity, the negative of earth's surface and of our civilized humours."
-Baudrillard, Jean. America. London: Verso, 1989, 2010.
In a future of extreme drought, can a winery be sustainable?
In the north of Baja California, only a two-hour drive south from the US-MX border, there is a small village called Guadalupe. Guadalupe is comprised of a small village with minor tourism and subsistence farming industries. But the city has quietly been growing into a major producer of Mexican wine with vineyards and wineries dotting the valley. One caveat, the region has been experiencing a significant drought with no forecasted relief in the future and this has accelerated the salt-water intrusion into the valleys aquifers.
This proposal for a new winery in the hills of the Guadalupe Valley integrates passive energy saving design features to minimize the amount of energy required to regulate the interior temperature for both comfort and wine processing. The design’s tiered arrangement which descends the hillside protects a residence for workers and visitors from the harsh summer sun.
The building’s stark southern and western façades are double skinned and passively draw cooler air into the building during the summer and assist in warming the structure in the winter.
After harvesting in the vineyards, grapes are brought into the main hall of the winery. After initial processing, the grape juice is moved to concrete fermenting vats which surround a central courtyard. These vats can be consistently monitored by workers pacing along this elevated cloister. The wine is then syphoned from the vats into the foundations of the building into barrel storage embedded into the hillside. Barrel storage opens directly onto a stone courtyard overlooking the hillside vineyards. This courtyard is converted from an event space for bottling and loading of the wine for shipping.
The building becomes sustainable when it can require little external energy/materials to use while also being flexible enough to be repurposed in the scenario where it is no longer needed as a winery.
Embedded the winery in the earth, designing minimum harsh summer sun exposure, sheathing the southern façade with a double skinned system, and minimizing waste or energy use across the building does not necessarily make the winery sustainable. The building becomes sustainable when it can require little external energy/materials to use while also being flexible enough to be repurposed in the scenario where it is no longer needed as a winery. The building is designed to be home to between 10 individuals or small families living as a community. The main hall and courtyard spaces could be repurposed for various community services, subsistence farming, or local manufacturing.
