Practice unveils a new visitor centre built for Rioja producer Bodegas Faustino
Foster & Partners has completed a major extension of a winery in northern Spain for Rioja producer Bodegas Faustino.
Commissioned by the fourth generation of the Martínez Zabala Family, the project includes a new timber visitor centre and a refurbishment of existing facilities at the site in Oyón.
Foster & Partners’ working relationship with the family, which is based in the heart of Spain’s principal wine making region, stretches back more than 14 years.
Practice founder Norman Foster said: “Our valued relationship with the Martínez Zabala Family stretches back to the last two decades, when we first worked together on their Bodegas Portia in 2010.
“The new project in Oyón knits together the entire site with discreet, sustainable interventions to the existing buildings and landscape, and an entirely new visitor centre that provides a new social focus and image for the winery with an immersive experience for all.”
The project has reimagined the Bodegas Faustino site as a whole, relocating its main entrance so visitors attending tours now travel through the vineyard on arrival.
A path leads to the new visitor centre, a column-free hall with a barrel vault roof inspired by the winery’s industrial heritage.
The building is supported on lightweight timber arches and includes an internal mezzanine with views over the visitor centre and through to the vineyard landscape outside.
An array of photovoltaic panels on the centre’s curved roof produce more energy than is required for the building’s operations, with the surplus being used to power the site’s other winery facilities.
Heat gain is also reduced by large overhangs on either side, which create a transitional space between inside and outside, while a central skylight running through the building bring natural light into its interior and reduce the need for artificial lighting.
Greenery has also been added on to the facades of the existing buildings to provide natural protection from the summer sun, further reducing energy consumption across the site.
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