PODERE LA CHIESA, TERRICIOLA, ITALY, PROJECT: ANDSTUDIO ARCHITECTS
The
Podere la Chiesa winery project in
Tuscany was born from the idea of creating a unique and compact building, immersed
and integrated into the context in which it stands. The concrete block embedded
in the hill blends in with the ground.
It has two main communicative facades which recall the small holes in the
facades of the nearby town, transformed into the texture of a bunch of grapes.
During the design phase, some focuses can be found: the functional aesthetic
quality: the designed spaces, such as the tasting space, take up the theme of
the reflection of light towards the inside and the perception of the landscape
from the inside towards the outside thanks to the circles which allow, from
every point of the cellar, perceive a different glimpse of the landscape.
The
second point is the emotional sensorial quality: in fact the perception of the
building changes completely from day to night. During the day we have a
fullness that hides the holes, at night the fullness is canceled out, making
the voids emerge. Constructively, innovation is achieved by using a traditional
material, concrete: The smooth and uniform effect of the facades was obtained
with a single jet for 7 meters in height up to the base, to maintain the
continuity of the color of the material; the plant systems were inserted before
the castings, in order to maintain the integrity of the concrete.
The insulation is provided inside the casing, to create a concrete cube, starting from the roof slab up to the facades. Concrete vibration systems were also used to avoid any honeycombs. A color formula was also used, inserting iron oxides into the concrete, to make it colored in paste.
The times for moving the concrete from the concrete mixing station to the construction site were precisely calculated, so as to always have the same color maturation time, avoiding different colors of the various pieces.
