Wine Production Facility Pairs Perfectly with Translucent Wall System
The 32-acre Aperture Estate Vineyards recently opened its new production facility in Healdsburg, California, championing Bordeaux-style wines from the Alexander Valley and Sonoma County's premier cool-climate. Expansive vistas of vineyards first planted in 1912 and the northern Russian River Valley greet Aperture's staff and visitors.
Providing a continuous expanse of diffused, natural daylight, the north wall of its new 24,000-square-foot Tank Room features EXTECH/Exterior Technologies, Inc.'s LIGHTWALL 3100LS® long-spanning, translucent polycarbonate, interlocking wall system. The system was custom-designed to uphold the project's exact aesthetic goals, engineered to meet the performance and sustainability requirements, and fabricated to ensure fast, smooth and accurate installation.
Connections in Focus Aperture's name and fine art collection honors acclaimed photographer, Andy Katz, father of the winery's owner, Jesse Katz. Designed by Signum Architecture, the firm described the project as "an exploration of the camera as a filter for experience, and the possibilities that emerge from reassembling the elements of an aperture of a lens in varying ways." Inspired by the father-son relationship, their travels together and their individual accomplishments, the buildings on the estate celebrate the blend art and science, nature and nurture, and work and pleasure.
Eschewing a purely utilitarian form, the Tank Room building incorporates natural light, focused perspective, thoughtful expression and practical functionality flavored with personal experience. Minimizing the potentially overwhelming visual impact of a large, singular, uniform, boxy structure, the Tank Room's production facility is scaled as four digestible, interconnected elements of differing dimensions.
Signum Architecture explained, "We deconstructed the aperture's traditional hexagonal shape into separate elements, manipulating and reassembling them into connected structures with rooflines canted in multiple directions."
The Tank Room's crisp lines and sharp angles define a contemporary aesthetic that houses a state-of-the-art process for an ancient practice. Its exterior is enclosed with vintage galvanized steel, perforated metal screens and EXTECH's translucent polycarbonate LIGHTWALL system. The mix of metal and glazing materials deepens the conceptual connection between the old and new, the land and the sun, and the staff and their workspace.