The Le Clos Jordan winery is a collaborative effort between the French wine maker Boisset located in Burgundy and the Canadian wine maker Vincor International. Their goal was to create a 35,000 square foot facility that would showcase the wine making process and provide a unique wine tasting and visitor experience.
Prior to working on the project, I had never thought of Ontario, Canada as a wine-producing region. We learnt that the microclimate of the Niagara Escarpment produces the best ‘terroir’ for the pinot noir grape anywhere in North America. The site for the proposed winery was encircled by a forest - with a small pond at one end. We decided that a low profile building placed in the center of the winery would best respond to the gently sloping topography.
Since the Le Clos Jordan winery was to be constructed from-the-ground up, we had an opportunity to integrate the wine making process with the architecture. We began the design process by analyzing the winery’s production process (diagram on left), translating its requirements to provide areas for grape receiving, grape crushing and de-stemming, pressing, fermentation and barrel aging (model on right).
Visitors on the winery’s wine tour were to trace each stage of the wine making process. A glass-enclosed private dining room in the red wine cellar and visible from the atrium was to create a unique and dramatic space for private dining or other special events.
The visitors’ route was highlighted via the use of natural light introduced through a network of linear skylights (model on left). These skylights, articulated as slices through the roof surface, were intended to break up the monolithic character of the massing into a series of smaller volumes (model on right).
Red-colored titanium was considered at first as a possible material for the exterior cladding (left of matrix), but slowly, the design evolved into white plaster for the vertical walls and stainless steel for the roofs (right of matrix).
The roof forms were developed sculpturally to heighten the potential effects of light through the linear skylights, producing dramatic canyon-like spaces within the interior of the building. The simple material palette of plaster and stainless steel was intended to compliment the undulating roof-scape to give the building an ethereal quality.
The sculptural roof forms were analyzed using our 3D computer model to establish the most efficient construction methodology (diagrams below). The complex geometries of the roofs were rationalized so that they could be realized using conventional heavy timber framing (upper left diagram); the metal cladding system was also studied to ensure it could be created using standardized sheet metal panels (upper right diagram).
Unfortunately, the project was not realized beyond the construction document phase, but the dream of tasting red wine from a monumental glass cylinder will always remain imprinted on my memory.
The projects in this section were designed and executed during my time at Gehry Partners LLP (the office). I am grateful to Mr. Gehry and the team at the office for their generosity and support over the years. All intellectual property rights of these projects continue to be owned by the office unless otherwise mentioned. The narrative texts on the projects are entirely personal, they do not represent the views or opinions of the office, its clients or any other third party or organization.