Photo © Luc Boegly
Château Cantenac Brown
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More than a celebration of epicurean delights, August’s Building Type Study, which also comprises the Continuing Education course, highlights the myriad ways architecture is enhanced through its connection to nature—often, quite literally, bringing the outdoors inside.
Join us as we wine, dine, and unwind at this month’s featured—and frequently far-flung—projects: a resiliency-minded casino-hotel on the Belgian coast; prefabricated eco-lodges perched high in Bolivia’s Uyuni Salt Flat; a Bordeaux-area winery that treads gently on its terroir; a lushly landscaped oasis of a hotel on Singapore’s Orchard Road; a natural daylight–flooded Connecticut catering facility; a boldly hued wine tasting room in Oregon’s scenic, winery-heavy Willamette Valley; and lastly, August’s cover story, a circular, solar panel–topped getaway in South Tyrol, Italy, where dramatic alpine views are simply inescapable.
Select an article to read more.
Round Trip
BY MATT HICKMAN
PHOTOGRAPHY: © MANUEL KOTTERSTEGER
The ring shape of the hotel, enveloped by farmland at the site of a former flour mill, is meant to evoke the full cycle of nature.
OLM NATURE ESCAPE | CAMPO TURES, ITALY | ANDREAS GRUBER ARCHITEKTEN
Flanked by the Zillertal Alps, a self-sustaining spa hotel offers a radical departure from the chalet-style accommodations found in Italy’s northernmost province.
Be it an onion-domed church or a metal-clad warehouse, it’s not difficult for any building to appear dramatic against the natural landscape of South Tyrol, Italy. With snow-capped peaks and deep, winding valleys setting the scene, even the most quotidian structures come alive in this mountainous pocket of Central Europe, still locked in an Italian-Austrian identity crisis. (Bilingual but predominantly German-speaking South Tyrol was annexed from the Austro-Hungarian Empire by Italy in 1919.) So, it doesn’t hurt that the province, fiercely independent and rooted in agrarian cultural traditions, has embraced contemporary architecture that’s just as sensational as the scenery. This is, after all, home to a superlative high-altitude museum designed by Zaha Hadid.
Lightweight
BY ANDREW AYERS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUC BOEGLY
The winery is flanked by the château on one side and a covered-market-type structure on the other.
CHATEAU CANTENAC BROWN | CANTENAC, FRANCE | (APM) ARCHITECTURE & ASSOCIÉ
Eschewing starchitect glitz in favor of an approach that treads gently on its terroir, a new winery is nonetheless a showstopper.
In a wine-industry peculiarity, the place of production often plays the role of showroom, immersing customers in the making of the merchandise to seduce them into buying. To render the story more compelling, vintners frequently turn to well-known architects, such as Pritzker Prize–winners Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, Christian de Portzamparc, or RCR, to name just a few who have tried their hand at wineries. Nowadays, however, not everyone believes in such celebrity branding, as evinced by the new winery at France’s Château Cantenac Brown, 15 miles north of Bordeaux. Here, in the heart of the Margaux appellation, owner Tristan Le Lous eschewed starchitect glitz in favor of French sustainable-building veteran Philippe Madec.
High and Dry
By Leopoldo Villardi
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROLAND HALBE
The Lodges at Jirira, Bolivia, overlook the Uyuni Salt Flat.
EXPLORA LODGES | JIRIRA, BOLIVIA | MAX NÚÑEZ ARQUITECTOS
To build with minimal impact, a Chilean architect bucks conventional wisdom about locally sourced materials.
The symptoms may seem mild at first: fatigue and a headache. But, over time, dizziness and a state of confusion will set in. Even while resting, shortness of breath lingers, stirring panic. Altitude sickness occurs when the body quickly ascends to higher elevations, where there is less oxygen to be absorbed by the lungs. It can imperil mountain trekkers and backpackers—to say nothing of those carrying out the physically taxing labor of construction. When commissioned with the design of a series of remote ecotourism lodges around Bolivia’s Uyuni Salt Flat (about 12,000 feet above sea level), Chilean architect and 2017 Design Vanguard Max Núñez developed a prefabricated solution with worker safety—as well as habitat conservation—top of mind.
“Doing anything in this part of the world requires a lot of effort,” says Núñez. But why build anything at all in such isolation?
Going Dutch
By TIM ABRAHAMS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEFAN STEENKISTE
The project softens the abrupt transition between the long stretch of waterfront development and the sea.
SILT | MIDDELKERKE, BELGIUM | ZJA
An Amsterdam-based firm brings its infrastructure know-how to a casino and hotel complex on the Belgian coast.
In the Belgian seaside town of Middelkerke, a new building, Silt, is referred to as “the casino,” largely because it replaces a 1950s Normandy farmhouse-style gambling hall, demolished in 2018. However, the project, designed by Amsterdam-based architects ZJA, is a hugely expanded structure that now defines the promenade along the water, containing not just a casino but a 76-room hotel and an 1,100-square-foot event space. It is also a sophisticated piece of flood defense and urban infrastructure. With all of these taken together, Silt provides an example of how Dutch architects (albeit a firm working in neighboring Belgium), conceive architecture and infrastructure as one. The project not only revitalizes the tourist offerings of Middelkerke but beefs up the storm resilience along the short Belgian coast.
Buttered Up
By MATTHEW MARANI
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL VAHRENWALD
The tasting rooms are used for staff meetings, events, and tastings for clients.
TASTING ROOMS | NORWALK, CONNECTICUT | ABRUZZO BODZIAK ARCHITECTS
Abruzzo Bodziak Architects gives a Connecticut catering facility a facelift.
Catering is a hectic corner of the hospitality industry; freshly prepared foods and beverages, along with the requisite support staff and infrastructure, are seemingly ready at a moment’s notice to service weddings, funerals, or other such large gatherings. However, shepherding so many pieces into place requires a well-oiled machine, with humming kitchen and logistical operations, and bustling office space. In Norwalk, Connecticut, the Abruzzo Bodziak Architects–designed culinary center for food-service company OnTheMarc raises the bar for the typology by converting a formerly drab facility into a welcoming and, most important, efficient home base for the client.
Hidden Oasis
By JAMES S. RUSSELL, FAIA EMERITUS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIMOTHY HURSLEY
A bridge hovers high above the hotel’s sunken courtyard garden and cantilevers over the entrance.
EDITION HOTEL | SINGAPORE | SAFDIE ARCHITECTS
Along Singapore’s famed Orchard Road, a sunken garden and high-flying pool offer a sense of sanctuary.
Diagrammatically, Singapore’s eight-story Edition Hotel wraps a courtyard with its 204 rooms, sharing a through-block site with a 28-story, 154-unit apartment tower. In the hands of Safdie Architects, the development becomes considerably more bravura. It is as if a 60-foot-wide slot were cut to divide the apartment tower vertically in half and the slice then hinged downward to form a 290-foot-long bridge that rests on the roof of the hotel, extending over the sidewalks at each end. Atop this bridge is the hotel’s most distinctive feature—a 140-foot-long swimming pool. Acrophobes beware: swimmers encounter a clear acrylic disk set into the pool floor with a view down nine stories to a lush courtyard.
A Pop of Color
By RANDY GRAGG
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PABLO ENRIQUEZ
The building’s red exterior stands out from the landscape.
COROLLARY WINES | AMITY, OREGON | WAECHTER ARCHITECTURE
A small Oregon winery makes a statement with a brightly hued tasting room for sparkling vintages.
For its modest 1,500-square-foot size, Corollary Wine’s new tasting room by Waechter Architecture glows as if an alien ship has landed on the horizon. Perched atop one of the Willamette Valley’s taller hills and wrapped in metal that’s powder-coated a custom red just shy of fluorescent, the building’s sharp origami folds stand out in the rolling landscape.
“Rather than hanging a sign somewhere, Corollary wanted the building to be an element of its brand,” says Waechter’s project lead Alexis Coir. But beyond being a bold building-as-logo, the tasting room “actually has a light touch architecturally,” she adds. “It’s really about the land.”
