Jinsha Baijiu Distillery Campus

Guizhou, China

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Renovation of the Kyakashhar Ancient Courtyard in Barkhor Street

Jinsha Baijiu Distillery Campus

Guizhou, China

Firm

hypersity

Type

Cultural › Cultural Center

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2025

I. Site Background
The project is located in the Dashuiling area of Jinsha County, Guizhou Province, in the upper reaches of the Chishui River Basin. It is adjacent to Huanghe Avenue to the south and the production area of Jinsha Distillery to the north.
The Jinsha Jiangjiu (sauce-flavored liquor) production area in the upper reaches of the Chishui River is situated in the golden liquor-making belt at 27° north latitude, with an altitude of 800-1100 meters, making it a natural liquor-making base. Its water quality and ecological environment directly affect the brewing raw materials of Moutai Distillery downstream. The total land area is 95 mu (70 mu for Phase I and 25 mu for Phase II), with an irregular land shape and obvious topographic undulations. A high slope is formed along the section adjacent to Huanghe Avenue in the south, from which the landscape of Jinsha Distillery can be seen in the distance.
A liquor industry-centered industrial spatial pattern has taken shape around the site. To the north is the existing production area of Jinsha Baijiu Distillery (with annual capacity growth), and to the west is the existing office building of the distillery.
The site was originally the Dashui State-Owned Farm established in 1963 (the late period of the People's Commune), with a layout featuring distinct characteristics of the era. It included agricultural planting areas (for grain and vegetable cultivation), animal husbandry and breeding areas, and industrial processing areas, including an oil press and a brick factory. This self-sufficient, multi-functional model was typical of state-owned farms during the commune period.
After decades of urban changes, the function of Dashui State-Owned Farm has gradually transformed—from a production-oriented farm to a residential area for villagers' resettlement, and finally to a shantytown on the urban fringe, with its spatial value and style in urgent need of renewal.
With the expansion of Jinsha Distillery's scale, it has established the core strategy of ‘Deeply Integrating Baijiu Production with Cultural Tourism Experience’ for breakthrough development and cultural communication. By integrating brewing technology, the site's historical heritage, and modern experience design, it has built an immersive scenario that is ‘visitable, tasteable, and consumable,’ promoting the brand's transformation from , selling Baijiu to ‘selling a lifestyle.’ The re-planning and design of the farm's front area is the implementation of this strategy, creating the cultural tourism value of ‘the production area being a scenic spot’ and providing a ‘small yet exquisite’ differentiated model for the transformation of the Baijiu industry.
Among the remaining state-owned farm buildings on the site, the former supply and marketing cooperative auditorium is at the core. Although the auditorium is currently dilapidated, with its roof collapsed and walls partially damaged, its main spatial framework remains intact. It not only retains the large-span spatial form but also has well-preserved colonnades at the entrance, becoming a key symbol carrying the site's historical memory.
In addition, there are scattered single-story or two-story brick-wood structure buildings on the site, all in the style of blue bricks and gray tiles. Some of these remaining buildings are still used for villagers' residence, but they generally have problems such as damp walls at the roots and decayed roof trusses, requiring improvements in overall style and structural integrity.
Considering the auditorium's spatial advantages and historical value, the strategy of ‘restoration and regeneration’ was finally determined for it. After restoration, it will serve as the Jinsha Baijiu Culture Exhibition Hall, allowing the historical building to continue its vitality through functional renewal.
II. Grid and Unit
The site is positioned as a ‘Comprehensive Cultural Tourism Complex in the Front Area of the Distillery,’ with a ‘garden-style distillery’ as the spatial foundation. This positioning is not merely a landscape creation but a functional design that aligns with the brewing rules of Jiangjiu.
Relying on the mild climate, suitable humidity, and ventilation conditions in Jinsha, a microenvironment with both ecological and brewing adaptability is built. It provides a natural habitat with stable temperature and humidity and active microbial communities for the microorganisms required for liquor brewing. This not only ensures the microbial foundation for the core production of Jiangjiu but also eliminates the industrial feel of traditional distilleries through a lush green scenario, achieving the unity of ecological production and aesthetic experience.
Aerial view of the northeast corner of the planned cultural and tourism area

Within the 70-mu core land area, a "controlling grid" is used as the framework for spatial division, constructing a planning and control system with "clear order and flexibility." A complete logic is formed from framework setting and function adaptation to scenario coverage.
First, the grid scale standard is clarified—grid units are divided based on the principle of ‘within a one-minute walk.’ This ensures the continuity of circulation for tourists, employees, and citizens between different functional areas, avoids spatial alienation caused by excessively large scales, and guarantees usability and convenience.
On this basis, the ‘Flexible Adaptation’ principle is adopted within the grid to arrange differentiated functional groups. Each unit undertakes fixed functions such as a museum, a brewing technology showcase area, an outdoor theater, a parent-child farmland, and a camping site. At the same time, flexible spaces are reserved to support periodic activities such as liquor culture exchange festivals and music carnivals, realizing no idleness for fixed functions and carriers for temporary activities.
Meanwhile, the team divides group usage scenarios to enable grid units to simultaneously meet diverse needs, such as farmland landscape cognition , tourists, and historical appreciation, avoiding insufficient spatial vitality caused by single functions.
In addition, this grid system is also matched with the project's cultural core. On the one hand, individual buildings are taken as the basic units of the grid, and the ‘Ordered Complexity’ is realized through the ‘Small unit, Multi-combination’ Approach. This ensures the regularity of the overall space while stimulating vitality through slight differences in the form of individual buildings, ultimately aligning with the core positioning of a vibrant city and a daily destination.
On the other hand, the grid system implies the scientific nature of Jinsha Baijiu’s ‘12987’ brewing process (one production cycle a year, two feedings, nine steamings, eight fermentations, and seven extractions). The sense of order of the grid echoes the rigorous process of the brewing technology. At the same time, the flexible combination of functions within the grid echoes the coexistence of ‘rational process’ and ‘sensory blending’ in the Baijiu-making technology. This makes the spatial planning itself a visual expression of Baijiu culture, achieving the unity of ‘Form serving Function and Function carrying Culture.’
Four main functional buildings are set up in the park, namely the Jinsha Baijiu Exhibition Center, Chinese Jiangjiu Museum, the Jinsha Baijiu Experience Center, and the Jinsha Baijiu R&D Center.
(1) Connecting Baijiu Production and Cultural Experience
As a transitional buffer zone between the distillery's production area and the cultural tourism experience area, an exclusive circulation line is designed to realize no interference in production and in-depth experience. Tourists can observe light production links such as the pretreatment of baijiu-making raw materials and the initial stage of starter-making through transparent corridors, and then enter the cultural experience area to participate in tasting and blending interactions, forming a closed loop of ‘Scenario-based production → Professional experience.’
(2) Connecting Industrial Functions and Urban Public Services
It actively integrates into the urban public system, incorporating the green plazas, squares, and landscapes of the complex into the urban slow-life experience system. This breaks the sense of boundary of the gated traditional distilleries and serves as an extension and supplement to urban public spaces.
(3) Connecting Enterprise Needs and Public Value
It serves the brand communication of the distillery, such as strengthening the recognition of mellow and soft sauce aroma through experience scenarios. It also undertakes the function of an urban cultural node, such as regularly holding public welfare activities like Jiangjiu culture popularization exhibitions and intangible cultural heritage craft markets, transforming Baijiu culture from an enterprise asset into urban cultural resources.
III. Architectural Form Evolution Based on Traditional Prototypes
Taking the single-story, gray-brick, brick-wood structure residential buildings with sloped roofs among the site's historical remains as the architectural prototype, combined with different functional needs, the four cultural tourism buildings are translated into daily-use structures through the design methods of prototype preservation → abstract integration → horizontal extension → vertical stacking.
Under the framework of structuralist philosophy, the design integrates the organic growth concept of the Metabolism School and the grid layered control method of carpet-style architecture. Individual buildings evolve in the direction of horizontal extension and vertical stacking, transforming the planar layout logic of traditional settlements into a three-dimensional combination to realize functional integration. In a state of ‘orderly yet rich,’ it balances regional characteristics and modernity.
Jinsha Baijiu Exhibition Hall
The "restore as old" method is adopted. The collapsed roof is reinforced and repaired with wood structures, and the damaged walls are repaved using the original technology to restore the historical style of the building with gray walls and sloped roofs. The internal space is flexibly arranged to adapt to the needs of dynamic exhibition changes, forming a universal large-space prototype.
China Sauce-Flavored Baijiu Museum
With abstract geometry to reconstruct the architectural prototype and circulation to connect immersive experiences as the design methods, it preserves the site's memory while creating a spatial carrier deeply integrated with Jiangjiu culture.
The concrete form of the double-sloped roof is stripped from the original sloped-roof building prototype on the site, and its unitized combination logic is extracted.
Then, with the modular stacking of rectangular blocks and the horizontal connection of linear corridors as pure geometric languages, the overall building form is reconstructed. This not only inherits the intangible sense of order and regularity of state-owned farm buildings but also eliminates the heavy form and sense of enclosure common in traditional distilleries through the lightness of modern geometric elements and the transparency of block combinations.
In terms of circulation and spatial connection, corridors and courtyards are used as links to build an unbounded indoor-outdoor exhibition system. A continuous exhibition circulation is planned inside, connecting permanent exhibition areas such as Jiangjiu history, technology, and tasting. At the same time, outdoor courtyards such as the raw material popularization courtyard and the fermentation-themed courtyard and roof corridors are embedded, allowing tourists to naturally transition from indoor exhibitions to outdoor scenario experiences while wandering, realizing an immersive closed loop of ‘Exhibition viewing →Perception → Interaction.’
For cultural expression, it goes beyond superficial symbols and conveys the connotation of brewing technology through the space itself. The contrast between the virtual and real of building blocks, such as the alternation of solid exhibition areas and transparent corridors and the dynamic changes of light and shadow, imply the process and rhythm of Jinsha Liquor's ‘12987’ brewing technology. The progression of space corresponds to the steps of the technology, and the flow of light and shadow echoes the cycle of fermentation, truly realizing narrating through space and spreading culture through experience.
Jinsha Baijiu Reception and Experience Center
The architecture of the reception and experience center draws on the brick-wood structure and sloped-roof form of the farm's prototype buildings. Each functional unit is equipped with an independent courtyard, and the layout is realized through the ‘Four-way rotation of courtyards,’ eventually forming a fractal spatial structure of ‘Large courtyards nesting small voids.’ Design inherits the spatial texture of connected courtyards in traditional settlements and enhances the comfort and permeability of the reception space through courtyards.
Jinsha Baijiu R&D Building
The design of the Jinsha Baijiu R&D Building follows the context of function adaptation and prototype innovation. It first overcomes the limitations of the prototype and then constructs an exclusive spatial logic, enabling the building to both echo the traditional prototype and accurately meet the needs of Baijiu industry R&D and office work.
Due to the need to carry multiple functions such as office work, R&D, conferences, and theaters, the single-story commune farm building prototype is insufficient in spatial capacity and function compatibility. The design first adjusts the scale of the prototype unit through horizontal stretching and vertical enlargement, and then uses the vertical stacking method to shape a ‘Mountain-shaped’ building volume. The stacked form retains the sense of extension of the traditional prototype and divides it into multiple Group-style individual buildings. Each individual building accurately corresponds to one type of function—for example, the low-rise group undertakes daily office work, the middle-rise group focuses on Jiangjiu R&D experiments, and the high-rise group houses the conference center and small theater—realizing clear functional division without mutual interference.
To break the spatial separation that may be caused by vertical stacking, vertical public spaces are systematically embedded inside the building. With the central atrium as the hub, it connects the functional groups on each floor. The R&D achievement display interface is set around the atrium to enhance information exchange among teams. Air corridors are used to connect different groups to meet the demand for efficient circulation between functional areas. Small communication stations are reserved in parts of the corridors, serving both scientific research observation and employee rest.

A vertical communication network is built by connecting the ground landscape, atrium, and aerial platforms, and combined with the shared negotiation areas and R&D discussion corners embedded on each floor, the frequency of team interaction is further enhanced. This makes the R&D building not only an efficient workplace but also a three-dimensional platform for liquor industry technology exchange.
Conclusion
The Jinsha Baijiu Cultural Tourism Complex has become a place that connects Baijiu production, displays culture, and provides daily leisure. Its scope covers from individual buildings to urban interfaces, and from cultural narration to technical implementation.
On the one hand, it combines the Baijiu-making conditions in the upper reaches of the Chishui River and reuses the historical remains on the site. On the other hand, it builds a connection between the Baijiu industry, the city, and citizens, serving as an urban living room for daily leisure, revitalizing the Baijiu-making advantages and historical remains in the upper reaches of the Chishui River.

Planned Area: 666.67 ㎡
Gross Floor Area (GFA): 22,335 ㎡
Building Footprint Area: 8,410 ㎡
Design Period August 2019 - June 2020
Construction Period : August 2020 - March 2025
Planning & Architectural Design Team: hyperSity architects.- Team Members: Yang Shi、Shaojun Li、Manyu Yin、Ou Dong、Yulong Li
、Wenfei Gao、Tian Leng、Ziming Wang、Kuangxi Cui、Xiaonuo He
Local Design Instittute: Hubei Haiye Engineering Consulting & Design Co., Ltd.

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Jinsha Baijiu Distillery Campus

Guizhou, China

Other Projects by hypersity

Renovation of the Kyakashhar Ancient Courtyard in Barkhor Street

Jinsha Baijiu Distillery Campus

Guizhou, China

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team