SUSTAINABILITY/BIODIVERSITY
Donja Reka is a village on the outskirts of the town of Jastrebarsko, 40 kilometers from Zagreb, with predominantly rural characteristics. Near the winery there is a stream, a forest and a vineyard. The winery, by its conception and choice of materials, integrates into that natural environment with the intention of becoming an integral part of the ecosystem that surrounds it in order to preserve biodiversity.
THE NATURALITY OF THE MATERIALS
Just as a biodynamic winemaker, in order to obtain wine without intervention, uses grapes in the quality that nature gave him, we used each building material in it's own naturalness.
DESIGN/CONCEPT
The winery is functionally and structurally organized vertically:
Basement – reinforced concrete due to its massiveness, tectonics and simple and raw beauty.
The L-shaped basement floor connects the old and new cellars, houses baskets for aging sparkling wine in bottles and a discreetly separated room for archives with a circular floor plan. The basement is entirely made of raw concrete.
Ground floor – thermobrick due to its contemporary industrial appearance and texture with flutings.
Large wooden barrels are placed in the simple volume of the ground floor with a rectangular floor plan (box). The load-bearing system consists of a reinforced concrete skeleton with a coffered ceiling and brick infill walls. The reinforced concrete skeleton is visible only in the interior because it is covered with brick walls on the outside, so they become a prominent element of the ground floor. A wooden structure rests on the ground floor box and covers it like a hat. In this way, on the ground floor we get outdoor covered spaces necessary for the functioning of the winery, especially during the harvest.
Attic - timber construction due to its structure woven from rhytmic repetition of the elements.
Above the box on the ground floor, a wooden structure forms an attic space (the narrowest), which is primarily intended for drying agricultural crops. The elements of the wooden laminated construction and the wooden massif fence are reminiscent of the traditional barn and its authentic ambience.
Roof - straw due to its texture and essence of an unprocessed and natural material.
At the top of the winery there is a roof garden with beds for planting herbs used for biodynamic preparations. The garden with flower beds is surrounded by a thatched roof on all sides.
BRICK WALL/INNOVATION
The thermobrick proved to be an ideal solution in our concept because, as a finished product, it meets modern requirements in a physical sense. Although it hides thermal insulation in its interior, it was not initially intended as the final layer of the facade. Despite everything, due to its authentic appearance, we used it on the facade and in the interior of the winery. We created a stacking plan for each "brick" as our craftsmen do stone blocks. We paid special attention to corner joints and points of contact with openings.
SIMPLICITY/CLARITY
The value and strength of the intervention lies in its simplicity and clarity, in the elementary nature of its constituent parts and their clear spatial resolution.
Functional and microclimate requirements are solved by using basic spatial operations of submersion (basement) and dilation (roof). Dilation of the roof in the horizontal and vertical sense creates an intermediate space between work and residence of users, movement of visitors and air flow. The soft membrane of the light straw cover directs the view from the roof terrace towards the forest, fields and vineyards, while simultaneously protecting the interior and exterior part of the ground floor from rain, snow and sun.
Each spatial element is completed and defined by its own constructive material, and by nothing else but itself. Each of the materials used develops in depth, their surface is not the end. Each of the materials will develop over time, as will the products that reside inside and the nature that surrounds it.
