Innocent Bystander Winery Australia : Architecture

Innocent Bystander Winery, Yarra Valley, Victoria, Australia Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects Architect's Statement The Yarra Valley is an established, thriving wine region about an hour east of Melbourne, this new winery and cellar door complex is located in the main street of Healesville, the region's local centre. The winery is a component of a larger development including a bakery and a brewery that will extend the activity of Healesville's main street over Merri Creek, providing a destination at the northern end of town. photos © Peter Bennetts Emulating the Burgundy region of France the winery is interested in bringing the experience of winemaking to the town, incorporating it into the culture of the community rather than remaining isolated on the vineyard. In this way the winery seeks to reveal the process of winemaking to visitors through engaging them with the physical experience and excitement of a working facility. The building consists of four major elements, the barrel store; a thermally controlled volume to store the barrels of wine, the processing area; the space that holds the fermenters and tanks where the wine is made, the hardstand; where fruit is received and sorted, and the cellar door; where the public interact with the facility and wine can be enjoyed and purchased. In this building a large glass wall inside the cellar door allows a full view of all winemaking activity exposing the complexity, hard work and delight of the process. The proximity to the creek and the flood plain have pushed the barrel store forward to the Maroondah Highway but this has been seen as a design opportunity not a constraint. Creating a strong formal gesture the architecture responds to the dense streetscape of Healesville, emulating the scale of the imposing facades of the Healesville Hotel and the Grand Hotel. The main facade of the elevation (the barrel store) is articulated by the application of an image in the surface of the Thermomass panels. This image is of the vineyard that will provide grapes to the winery, it is repeated along the length of the wall to create the effect of driving past the rolling vineyard landscape that surrounds Healesville. The cellar door is a glass box that will be wrapped in recycled timber slats that provide a filtered light to the interior but also reference the timber of the wine barrels. photos © Peter Bennetts The architects have worked closely with a landscape architect to ensure the building engages the surrounding landscape and responds to the change in seasons. A shallow moat that separates the façade from the footpath holds a collection of new and existing trees that play a role in the articulation of the façade. The trees will cast a constant shadow onto the surface of the wall. In summer this will provide slow moving leafy shadows and plays of light; in winter the surface will become animated by the shadows of branches moving in the wind across the light bluestone coloured panels stained by rain. Innocent Bystander Winery Australia images / information from Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects