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Paris architects Nadau Lavergne have completed a rusted steel winery on a World Heritage Site in the south of France.

The Chateau Barde-Haut winery in Saint-Emilion comprises two Corten steel blocks, one of which nestles between two existing stone buildings with matching pitched roofs.

A two-storey building with a chunky-concrete frame and timber cladding is concealed inside one of the warehouse blocks.

Vintage barrels of wine are stored behind glass screens on the ground floor of this internal building.

Above is a room that overlooks the warehouse floor.

Hot air pumps regulate the temperature inside the buildings.

We also recently featured a story about refurbished wine cellars in Spain – see our earlier story here and see all our stories about wineries here.

Photography is by Philippe Caumes.

The following text is from Nadau Lavergne:

Composes in time

The Chateau Barde-Haut is a 17-hectare domain situated in Saint-Emilion, at the end of the tray.

Registered in 1999 on the UNESCO world heritage, the jurisdiction of Saint-Emilion is a remarkable example of a historic wine landscape, which survived intact. In 2005, we had rehabilitated of former winery in a building of traditional stone.

Sought again in 2008 for a project of a bigger scale. The existing site is characteristic of the form of the Gironde wine landscape: an island of stone low houses of the 19th century, contain offices and the other dependences, appear from rows of vineyards. In the North of this island gets loose a volume everything in length: the wine storehouse.

The project takes advantage of this architectural context which makes the identity of the country. We would have certainly been able to work a rather linear architectural coherence, to answer the justifiable expectations of a landscape the timeless face of which is security of a tradition.

Nevertheless, the identity of a country is not dependent on an architectural gesture which would content with reproducing the characteristics of the existing. In a time when the business of the wine becomes international, where the French production is competed by foreign wines, the wine country of Saint-Emilion remains a strong entity, both for the beauty of its landscapes and for the brilliance of its naming.

The production of the wine is a tradition multimillennium; this secularity hires it in an era today which was able to frighten the profession. Of new requirements in term of fermentation and wine making, the expectations of warned customers, a necessary export, so many signs of the inescapable modernization of the viniculture. How to reconcile from then on the identity of a ground, its exception and its stamp and the technical innovations?

The choice of contemporary architecture answers this visible contradiction. Two volumes rise on the existing site: on one hand workshops, the configuration of which in length allows to structure the entire space of the site and to redesign the roads; on the other hand cuviers and reception hall, which skip in the hollow of the space left by stony buildings. Both get dressed of sheets of rusty steel, the aspect of which metamorphoses according to climates; the volumes hurry of nuances pastels, ochre and sienna.

The choice of this material was imperative(led) with a certain evidence: the strength of the place required architecture in the asserted minimalism, the architectural presence which did not think in term of competition or rivalry, but dynamics. The existing wine storehouse and the workshops had been dug to mitigate the leveling of the ground.

A dynamic contact of the architectures.

Noting the configuration of the built, and quite particularly this space between the wine storehouse and the very dense set towards, the project thus comes to fit partly into the stony case; the welcoming volume cuviers and reception hall skips between the traditional buildings, the witnesses of a secular memory. Its facade is aligns itself with the line of built existing (wine storehouse and diverse dependences); it marries the length of the wine storehouse to present on the West a facade which fits on the width of the building. So by overlaying this volume in the pronounced lines, as cut from the corten steel, from the stony heart, we wished to open up the architectures.

This unexpected closeness of a contemporary building and one built traditional, their contact, create an interesting dynamics. An interaction which authorizes a new story; The identity of every sequence is as raised by the unusual presence of the other architectural temporality. An attention on the temporality being inspired by the alchemy which shapes the character of a wine, a mouthful of which lets guess the spring rains, the burning sun of August, the wooded accents of the oak.

The architectural lines of the project borrow their simplicity and their dynamics from wefts of the rows) of vineyards. The cover of rusty steel which dresses both buildings creates a visual coherence and declines the colors of the country. However a strong identity characterizes each of them.

Canadian wells were dug along the line of built formed by the wine storehouse, the volume contains cuviers and reception hall, and the existing stony buildings. They allow to reduce the thermal amplitudes for the internal spaces of the wine storehouse and the cuvier. Hot air pumps, settled in studios (workshops), distribute the air(sight) chill and regulate the process. Buildings (ships) are isolated around for an optimal thermal slowness.

The végétalisée roof that covers workshops has three different functions it favours the insertion of the contemporary volume in the site; it contributes its slowness by strengthening the insulation; she allows finally to filter rainwater, which are got back. Wine-producing waters are handled, managed towards a water-treatment plant. A wind turbine fixed to the roof of workshops enlightens the outside.

A volume dug in the ground.

Workshops, directed east-west, consist of 4 sequences indicated by the play of the roof, the division of which in visible accordion in facade revisits the industrial architecture of the 1950s. Inside, the first three sequences communicate between them (from north to south: workshop(studio), premises and cloakrooms(changing rooms), shelter material two high doors of panels of steel lacquered on rails open in the East. The last sequence is a huge room for vintagers, whose inside gets dressed of wood.

A wide plate glass window totally opens the space on a wooden terrace; it cuts a panoramic centring on the valley of Saint-Emilion. Half-buried in the North to mitigate the leveling of the ground, the whole building presents a favorable thermal slowness, to which contributes the presence of a vegetalized roof.

In the North, a wind turbine fixed to a hurt metallic structure allows to feed all the outside lighting. It indicates the presence of the building which seems to go out gradually of the ground. The vegetalized roof plays with the singular topography of the ground, by creating the illusion of a building dug in the ground.

See also:

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Wine Cellars for Vega-Sicilia by Salas Studio	Faustino Winery by Foster + Partners	Bodegas Protos by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

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Here’s another update from the cutting edge of toilet design: Copenhagen studio UiWE are working on urinals for women.

UiWE first trialled the Pollee urinals at Roskilde festival in Denmark earlier this month, where guys were treated to the tree-mounted urinals by Aandeboom that we featured in our earlier story.

Four girls can use a cluster of urinals around one central core, divided by low screens.

Users squat rather than standing up, maintaining their poise by clutching handles at the edge of each screen.

Three prototypes with different levels of privacy were trialled at Roskilde – Pollee Shy, Pollee Topless and Pollee Naked – and the designers hope to put a modified version into production next year.

UiWE was founded in 2008 by culture and philosophy graduate Christian Pagh. The team now includes interior architect Nuala Collins, designer Sara Nanna Jørgensen and ideator Marie Wöldike.

Check out our top ten stories about designer toilets here »

More information is provided by the designers:

PeeBetter and Pollee – the female urinal.

Copenhagen culture design agency UiWE launches the online platform PeeBetter and the female urinal Pollee. The ambition is to create smart and attractive solutions to pee in public space. First mission: a simple solution for girls.

At Roskilde Festival 2011 UiWE presented the first prototype of Pollee – an open-air, touch-free urinal for girls. At Pollee, four girls can pee together around a shared core, partly protected by low walls. The basic idea with Pollee is creating a simple and portable form that makes peeing quicker and easier.

At the festival, three different versions of Pollee with varying degrees of privacy were placed alongside each other: Pollee Shy, Pollee Topless and Pollee Naked. This enabled the girls to try, compare and give feedback on the different versions.

PeeBetter and Pollee are initiated by cultural planner Christian Pagh of Copenhagen based cultural design agency UiWE with a team of independent designers. Christian Pagh says: ”The Roskilde project was all about testing our idea: a simple, open-air pee solution for girls. Quite frankly: the girls’ response at the festival was overwhelming. We have talked to hundreds of girls and although we received ideas for improvement, the overall message was: We use it and we love it!”

A focal point for the designers is finding the balance between private and public. It’s an important feature of Pollee that it is open and social – making it simpler and faster than the disgusting port-a-loos. Another thing that makes Pollee special is the combination of a semi-squat position and something to hold on to, giving the user balance and support while peeing. The design is based on months of testing and investigation into the pee needs of women.

The version of Pollee presented at Roskilde Festival 2011 was a first prototype. Now UiWE are building collaborations with some of the great festivals in Denmark – Roskilde and Distortion – to develop a refined and larger-scale version for 2012. The aim is to mass-produce Pollee next year.

“Our drive is that Pollee becomes a real queue-killer that enables girls to get peeing over and done with quickly, so they can get on with the more fun and important things. Queuing is such a waste of life!” says Christian Pagh.

Pollee is designed by UiWE and PeeBetter in association with independent designers Sara Nanna Jørgensen and Nuala Collins. PeeBetter is a strategic platform for developing human solutions to peeing in public space – for both sexes. The ambition is to unite cultural understanding, infrastructure and design to find genuine solutions to peoples’ genuine needs.

See also:

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P-Tree by Aandeboom	Hiroshima Park Toilets by Future Studios	Gravesend public toilets by Plastik Architects

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