Walker Warner creates House of Flowers tasting room for California winery

California firm Walker Warner Architects has transformed a warehouse into a visitor centre for a winery with redwood, cypress and rammed earth.

Called House of Flowers, the project serves as a visitor centre and tasting room for Flowers Vineyard & Winery, well known for its chardonnay and pinot noir wines.

Started in the 1980s, the company has vineyards along Sonoma County's rugged coast in California. The new visitor facility is located in the town of Healdsburg, which is a popular destination for wine lovers and tourists, and more accessible than its previous location.

The centre sits on a 15-acre (six-hectare) estate that formerly belonged to VML Winery. When Flowers acquired the site, it set out to renovate the property's outdated structures and turned to San Francisco's Walker Warner Architects for help.

The challenge was how to preserve the site's legacy while updating it. Rather than build anew, Walker Warner Architects chose to convert a warehouse into the visitor centre – a decision that aligned with its client's commitment to sustainability.

While designing the project, the team focused on creating a building that embraced the natural setting. The warehouse was overhauled and a two-storey volume was added.

"Our approach was deceptively simple," said firm principal Brooks Walker. "Let nature dominate and use architecture to frame the experience."

Tucked into a tree grove, the centre is roughly rectangular in plan and is topped with a pitched, standing-seam metal roof. Redwood wall cladding is stained black to help the building "recede into the site and allow the landscape to become the focus," the studio said.

"The architectural expression is understated," said firm principal Mike McCabe. "The region's strong, simple vernacular forms served as guide and reference point to help root the architecture to its setting."

The team incorporated passive strategies to reduce energy consumption, such as the inclusion of skylights and large windows. The surrounding trees help shade the building.

The interior features a variety of rooms where guests can sip wine and learn about vinification. Rooms are fitted with low-back sofas, wicker chairs and wooden tables.

Off-white walls are paired with cypress wall panelling, which is meant to provide a "yin-yang" contrast to the building's dark exterior. Concrete and oak are used for flooring.

Visitors can also relax outdoors and take in the scenery. An outdoor kitchen features a wood-fired oven used to prepare pizza and other fares for wine pairings.

The project also entailed modifications to the landscape, which were overseen by Nelson Byrd Woltz and Alexis Woods Landscape Design. Garden plots are filled with grasses, flowering plants and leafy trees.

Low walls made of rammed earth and board-formed concrete – along with a variety of seating areas – are woven into the outdoor space. New pathways lead from a parking lot to the visitor centre.

"Together, landscape and architecture combine to provide a quiet refuge, a place to celebrate community and friends through the experience of wine," the team added.

Established in 1989, Walker Warner Architects has completed an array of projects including Makani' Eka house in Hawaii and wine-tasting pavilions overlooking Napa Valey.

Photography is by Douglas Friedman.

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Project credits:

Architect: Walker Warner Architects
Team: Mike McCabe (principal), Brooks Walker (principal),
Sharon Okada (senior project manager), Matthew Marsten, Hana Bittner, Darcy Arioli
Interior designer: Walker Warner Architects and Maca Huneeus Design
Landscape architect: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Consulting local landscape architect: Alexis Woods Landscape Design
Lighting design: Anna Kondolf Lighting Design
Structural engineering: Daedalus Structural Engineering
Contractor: Cello & Madru Construction Company

Product suppliers:

Doors and windows: Amari, Northstar Woodworks
Wall and ceiling panelling: Arc Wood & Timbers
Reclaimed wood: Aborica
Reclaimed wood sculptures: Arborica, Evan Shively
Oak flooring: Monarch Plank
Stair railing: Complete Fabrications
Lighting: Areti, Bocci, Tegan Lighting
Pizza oven: Mugnaini
Gas fireplace: Element 4
Concrete island and vanity: Sonoma Cast Stone
Tiles: Ann Sacks, Island Stone
Fixtures: Kallista

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Give a Sheet? Then take a look at these artworks on toilet paper

Two designers repurpose the world's most in-demand household item into a canvas for detailed illustrations, to raise money for WHO's Covid-19 fund.

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IKEA, Guinness, VW and Nike encourage social distancing and staying home

Many brands are altering their logos to promote social distancing and creating adverts to encourage staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Brands with extremely well-known logos, including restaurant company McDonalds and German car companies Audi and Volkswagen, have separated elements within their logos to encourage social distancing.

VW is among the brands to alter its logo to encourage social distancing

Social distancing – reducing non-essential contact with others and maintaining a distance of around two metres from other people – is one of the key strategies that will slow the spread of coronavirus Covid-19.

To raise awareness of the need to distance from others, Volkswagen increased the gap between the V and the W in its flat logo, which was recently created to mark to the "start of a new era". The logo was placed above the words "Thanks for keeping your distance".

McDonalds Brasil separated the golden arches in its logo

In Brasil, McDonalds altered its iconic golden arches M logo in a similar manner. The company posted a picture on its Facebook page with the two arches separated and standing alone.

Audi also separated the four, usually interconnected, rings of its logo for a post on social media. The automobile company posted a video showing the altered logo on Twitter, alongside a message that read "stay at home, keep your distance, stay healthy, support each other – we are in this together."

IKEA is encouraging people to stay at home

Other brands have focused on the need for people to stay at home. Numerous countries are now on lockdown with the majority of people being encouraged to stay within their homes for their own safety and to slow the spread of the virus.

In Israel, advertising company McCann's created a version of an IKEA-assembly manual for the furniture company. Alongside the words "stay höme" is a picture of a house, with icons of a key, lock and toilet paper.

Guinness is circulating an image created by Luke O'Reilly

Brewer Guinness has been circulating a version of one of its classic averts, but with the foam on top of the pint replaced with a sofa. The advert was designed by freelancer Luke O'Reilly, who gave permission for Guinness to circulate it.

"The stay at home creative really drove home the message," explained Grainne Wafer, global brand director of Guinness.

"In one simple visual it captured the seriousness of the times that we’re in, while also bringing a smile to people. We've been in touch with Luke – and hopefully we'll get to meet over a pint in the not too distant future."

Nike is also encouraging people to stay at home

Nike has also created an advert to promote staying at home. The sportswear brand opted for a simple message rather than altering its logo. "Play inside, play for the world", states the advert.

Other designers have also been redrawing brands logos to show the impact of coronavirus.

Last week Slovenian graphic designer Jure Tovrljan redrew the logos of brands including the Olympics, Starbucks and Nike to show the affect the virus is having on people's lives.

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The Parchment Works house extension built inside ruined stone walls

The ruins of a 17th-century parchment factory and old cattle shed form part of a residential extension by Will Gamble Architects in Northamptonshire, UK.

Named The Parchment Works, the extension introduces an open-plan kitchen, living and dining area to a listed Victorian house.

It was designed by Will Gamble Architects for a semi-retired couple who desired an open and unique counterpoint to the dwelling's otherwise truncated interior.

The client's brief for the studio asked that the home's adjoining cattle shed was converted, but that the adjacent ruin – remnants of a factory built in the 1600s to produce parchment paper – was demolished.

However in recognition of the ruin's historical significance, Will Gamble Architects instead proposed preserving and celebrating it by inserting the extension within its masonry walls.

"The ruin was built in the 1600s and is the oldest part of the house," said the studio's director Will Gamble.

"Despite falling into disrepair the ruin was a very important building within the community and further a field – it used to produce parchment paper and was rumoured to have made paper for members of the royal family," he told Dezeen.

"It has real charm both historically and aesthetically," Gamble continued. "It was very much part of the character of the building as a whole and therefore we felt strongly that it needed to be preserved and celebrated."

"It ended up being the driving force behind the entire scheme and the change in approach was eventually well received by both the client, the planners and Historic England."

The Parchment Works' extension has a stepped form, measures a single-storey in height, and occupies one half of the ruins footprint.

This was designed by Will Gamble Architects to reduce the visual impact of the structure and ensure it is subordinate to the ruin.

"At first we looked at infilling the entire ruin but felt that the character and appearance of the ruin walls internally were just as if not more important than their exterior," Gamble explained.

"We therefore infilled half of the ruin and left the remaining half untouched to expose the internal face of the walls."

By filling in half of the ruin's footprint in this way, Will Gamble Architects was able to incorporate a courtyard on the ground floor.

Meanwhile, its single-storey height enabled the studio to incorporate a roof terrace above that is accessible from the existing master bedroom on the first floor of the house.

The materiality of extension was dictated by the studio's ambition to use as many materials found on site from factory's outbuildings that once occupied it.

Salvaged local bricks form the walls of the extension, while stone slabs from the floor of the old parchment factory line the base of the courtyard.

Elsewhere, five-metre-long oak beams found on the site were also cut down to be create lintels for the extension's doors and windows. This is paired with contemporary weathered steel and wood detailing.

Will Gamble Architects' ambition to preserve the history of the site is also evident inside The Parchment Works, where timber joists from the cattle shed and the ruin's masonry walls are visible throughout the extension.

"The concept behind the interiors was to go for an honest palette of materials that celebrated the architecture of the cattle shed and the ruin," Gamble explained.

"We tried to preserve the character of the ruin and the cattle shed as much as possible by leaving most of what was already there uncovered."

Elements of the new structure for the extension, including oversized timber joists and white-painted steels, are also exposed inside in an effort to "continue the concept of celebrating the bones of the building".

These are teamed with a minimal backdrop of white-washed oak floorboards with a chunky concrete skirting, and walls with a textured sand and cement render finish.

According to Will Gamble Architects, the original Parchment Works was built on the site because of a natural spring that runs under the building. This water was used to clean the hides from which the parchment was made, by lowering them into a series of baths.

As part of the project, the studio opened up one of these underground baths to create a water feature. This also doubles as a dry well to dispose of surface runoff.

Other homes built from ruins featured on Dezeen include the Astley Castle in Warwickshire by Witherford Watson Mann, which won the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2013.

More recently, architecture studio Arquitectura-G transformed a crumbling stone structure in the medieval village of Palau-Sator, Spain into a contemporary family dwelling.

Photography is by Johan Dehlin.

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Daily coronavirus architecture and design briefing: 31 March

Daily coronavirus briefing: today's architecture and design coronavirus briefing includes news on Dubai Expo 2020, how Covid-19 hospitals are built, Sam Jacob's design academy and an F1 team making a breathing aid.

How emergency coronavirus hospitals are built

Architects for Health chair Christopher Shaw explains how conference centres such as the ExCel in London are being converted into hospitals for coronavirus patients (via RIBAJ).

UN and WHO launch Global Call Out To Creatives to make informative coronavirus visuals

The United Nations and World Health Organisation have launched an open competition for creatives to create informative works that accurately communicate public health messages in a bid to "flatten the curve" of the coronavirus pandemic (via Dezeen).

Dubai Expo 2020 set to be delayed until 2021

The organisers of the Dubai Expo 2020, which was scheduled to begin on 20 October, want to delay the event until 2021 (via Bloomberg).

Sam Jacob launches weekly Desktop Design Academy

Dezeen columnist Sam Jacob has launched a weekly design challenge for those in isolation called the Desktop Design Academy. The first exercise, which is open to all, is to create a souvenir (via Sam Jacob).

SheltAir gridshell pods inflate in eight hours to isolate coronavirus patients

German architectural engineer Gregory Quinn has developed a domed bio-containment pod made from inflatable cushions that could help coronavirus patients isolate (via Dezeen).

National 3D Printing Society calls for printers to items for NHS

The National 3D Printing Society looking for architects and designers to donate their 3D printers to help create items for the National Health Service. The organisation has set up a database to coordinate manufacturing and distribution (via National 3D Printing Society).

Mercedes Formula One team create breathing aid in a week

Engineers from the Mercedes Formula One team and University College London (UCL), along with doctors at the UCL hospital, have made a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) breathing device, which can be used by coronavirus patients not in intensive care (via BBC).

Sick pay and self-isolation employment rights for architects

Architecture magazine Architects' Journal has created a practical guide that explains architects employment rights during the coronavirus period of self-isolation (via Architects' Journal).

Brooks Brothers making 150,000 masks a day

Brooks Brothers is the latest clothing company to begin mask production. It is set to make 150,000 masks a day in its factories in New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina (via National Review).

Apple launches coronavirus screening app

Apple has launched a new app that provides users with information about coronavirus. It also allows them to take a basic assessment, asking about relevant symptoms and recent travels, to find out whether they should seek medical care or not (via Hypebeast).

Virgin Orbit plans to mass-produce new medical breathing device

Richard Branson's satellite launch company Virgin Orbit has developed a new breathing device to help medical workers treat patients with Covid-19, which the company is planning to mass-produce after FDA approval (via The Verge).

London Design Fair 2020 cancelled 

This year's edition of the London Design Fair, which was set to take place 17-21 September, has been cancelled (via Art and Collections).

Keep up with developments by following Dezeen's coverage of the coronavirus outbreak. For news of impacted events, check Dezeen Events Guide's dedicated coronavirus page.

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