For this project, the studio was tasked with creating a winery on the site of Frog’s Leap Winery in Napa Valley, CA.
Although the project was on the site of an existing winery, the studio was given nearly free reign as far as design goes, with programmatic, code, ADA and logistical requirements making up the design challenge. The existing winery is very standard in terms of architecture, however, there were two major aspects of the original winery that informed major design decisions.
Firstly, the original winery consisted of a wine-making barn designed in 1884 by Hamden McIntyre, an icon and pioneer of early Napa Valley. As the barn is a historical building and center-piece of the existing site, it seemed appropriate to preserve, and celebrate, its rustic and original form. This was the only building of the existing project to be integrated into the design proposal, and the barn became the source of vernacular, scale, and orientation for the small, axial, campus design that would make the finished project. The new building reflect the character, tectonics, and scale of the original winery, using similar materials, fixtures, layout, and so forth.
The second major aspect of the winery that informed design was the philosophy of the winery in terms of ecology and sustainability. Frog’s Leap not only has a reputation for excellent wine, but a reputation for sustainable farming, harvesting, and production practices. From recycling glass to using native bird species for pest control, Frog’s Leap has put a lot of genuine focus on to creating a rich ecology and sustainable business on their site; including not just micro-environments for their vines, but micro-environments for fruits and vegetables that feed employees and customers. To honor Frog’s Leap’s dedication to sustainability, hemp-crete was used as the material of choice for the new buildings that populate the site. Hemp-crete is a natural, structural material made from ground up and cast industrial hemp. Much of the material that is ground up is industrial waste, a by-product of hemp production. However, this material makes an excellent building material when mixed with lime and sand. Hemp-crete functions much the same as traditional concrete, though with much less structural strength. What it lacks in strength, it makes up for in multiple other areas. Hemp-crete is naturally a pretty good insulation in mild climates, such as Napa Valley, and is also pest-resistant and carbon negative (meaning it reduces carbon emissions instead of adding to them, this is a by-product of the chemical process for casting hemp-crete).
With these two fundamental aspects of the design, the rest of the project designed itself fairly well with the programmatic requirements. The original form and organization of the barn provided a useful blueprint for the rest of the design, with many design moves breaking away for very specific programmatic requirements, such as having gallery space for private tasting rooms. In the end, the project ended as a practice of historical preservation, as it prompted questions such as: “How can a building built 150 years ago communicate with its surrounding context today?”, “What modern materials can honor old ideas and promote a new, local ecology?” and “How can a winery balance as an industrial, commercial, and social space without sacrificing its character?”
