Foster + Partners has been commissioned to extend and refurbish the Bodegas Faustino winery in Spain. The project will be centered on the creation of a new timber visitor center that will feature a solar panel array, enabling it to produce almost six times the electricity the building requires.
Bodegas Faustino is located in Oyón, in Spain's winemaking region La Rioja, where the Martínez Zabala family started their wine business 160 years ago.
The new visitor center will take the form of a long half-tube structure made from locally sourced timber, with complex wooden arches and an earth-colored exterior that's designed to help it blend in well with its surroundings. Its interior, meanwhile, will feature an open and airy layout that will be flexible and future-proof. Alongside the visitor center, Foster + Partners will install a new street to improve accessibility, with timber canopies and landscaped pathways used to direct guests through the vineyards.
"The interior space is vaulted and column-free, to create an extremely spacious and flexible volume," explained Foster + Partners. "An asymmetrical core separates two distinctive zones which offer different experiences of Faustino wines. A central staircase and [elevator] connect the ground floor with the mezzanine above, which cantilevers out from the core overlooking the space beneath and the beautiful vineyard landscape beyond."
Though its early days yet and we've no hard figures available, the sustainable design will be significant and, alongside its solar panel array, the visitor center's roof will also boast generous glazing to reduce the need for artificial lighting. Greenery will be added to existing buildings to help improve their thermal performance and carefully selected native species will be added to increase biodiversity too.
We've no word yet on when the project is expected to be completed. This isn't the first time Foster + Partners has been involved with the Martínez Zabala family and the firm previously worked on its Bodegas Portia back in 2010. It also more recently completed a winery in France named Le Dôme Winery.
Source: Foster + Partners
