A Conversation Over Drinks
Stevens Williams, AIA, LEED AP®, Flad Architects
The Teaching and Research Winery and the August A. Busch III Brewing and Food Science Laboratory (WBF) comprise the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine. The WBF is a pilot facility that integrates wine making, brewing, and food processing with discovery and learning programs. Recently awarded high honors as a "laboratory of the year" for 2011, WBF demonstrates that ambitious energy and environmental goals can be successfully integrated in a high-performance science environment.
WBF is an extended research and teaching environment, integrating bench-top science with applied process technologies. Unique for its type and broadly transformative in its potential, this facility carries academic investigation to industrial application. Here, researchers can directly test theories and validate new processes for cultivation and production in industrial conditions.
The building is an extended learning environment as well, educating students in sustainable production processes and operating procedures. It is a living model, where the effectiveness of energy-efficient technologies is directly monitored and demonstrated in a highly sustainable setting.
Entirely funded by donor bequests, WBF was undertaken with the expectation that building features and operating systems could be scaled up for application in parent industries. Specific innovations that engaged the vision of industry donors and addressed general issues for sustainable performance include real-time monitoring and ability to adjust building systems; piping research fermentors for carbon dioxide capture, allowing later conversion to solid state; and modifying conventional wall assembly to create a high-performance envelope.
WBF is the first building in the region to satisfy all irrigation and all non-potable water needs through stormwater harvesting and will be foremost of its type to reduce process water demands through a clean-in-place system.
WBF will be the first LEED® Platinum building on this campus and the third in this state educational system. It will house the world's first LEED Platinum winery, first LEED Platinum brewery and first LEED Platinum food-processing pilot plant. It is one of about a half dozen laboratories and the first process science building to attain this level of performance.
WBF has been described as an "intelligent barn," in terms of the modesty of the architecture and the distance from agricultural practice. As traditional buildings, all barns possess a native intelligence, supporting an inherent need to reduce, re-use and replenish. This is a building that remembers, and hopefully, one that teaches.
Biography:
Stevens Williams is the principal and design director for Flad Architects in San Francisco. Mr. Williams' design for the brewery, winery, and food sciences facility reflects both his deep personal interest in the agrarian landscape and demonstrated professional commitment to sustainability.
Mr. Williams is currently leading sustainable building designs for Merritt College, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Sandia National Laboratories, the California Maritime Academy, and San Francisco State's Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies.
Mr. Williams' past innovative designs for energy conservation include Applied Biosystems, one of the first science buildings to be certified by the LEED program, and the Ohlone College Newark Center, the first LEED Platinum campus in North America. Mr. Williams' recognition includes Best of California, Education Award, the U.S. General Services Administration Design Excellence Program, and the National Endowment for the Arts Presidential Award.