CHALLENGE
Place an upscale wine bar, private club, retail wine store along with required parking on a 1.5 acre site along a busy thoroughfare within a recently blighted neighborhood. Develop interior and exterior spaces that are experientially rich with pleasing views on a site where views beyond the site are unremarkable.
STRATEGY
Taking queues from Japanese Temple complexes we placed the all-glass tasting room at the center of a courtyard. The perimeter of the courtyard is lined with the wine bar, retail store, private tasting rooms, display kitchen, storage and other support spaces. Lush, native landscaping, wood decks and native crushed shell help to define outdoor rooms.
RESULTS
During the spring, fall and winter, the courtyard becomes the most popular place to be. The central pavilion is designed with all services hidden in the central bar and structure is limited to vertical columns, provides a perimeter uninterrupted by structure or services. Eight sets of the largest sliding glass doors allowed by hurricane code allow the pavilion to be opened to the outdoors when the weather allows.
Our client is a successful restaurant and wine entrepreneur in South Florida. In a 20 x 20 space within her restaurant, she became the second largest independent wine retailer in Florida!
This affluent community in coastal Southwest Florida consumes more than its share of wine and is home to the world’s most successful charity wine festival, raising $33 million for charity earlier this year. Our client saw an opportunity to provide a place for wine enthusiasts to gather, purchase and taste wine.
Sustainability:
Floors are polished concrete, eliminating the need for a floor finish.
Cabinetry and mass timber beams are sustainably sources.
Steel beams are 100% recycled material
Rainwater from roofs, collected by rain chains is piped to storage vaults under the parking where it slowly seeps into the ground, recharging the aquifer.
Permeable pavers, along with underground water storage vaults retain 100% of rainwater on site.