A long, low building set into a hillside of wild grasses

Hospitality · Stellenbosch, South Africa · 2021

Kestrel Winery

Pressed into the hillside, like the vines around it.

Overview

Kestrel Winery is built into the slope, so the cellars stay cool without machinery. From the road you see only a long, low line of glass and a meadow roof that flowers in spring.

The tasting room looks across the valley to the Helderberg. Charred oak, cast concrete and rammed earth from the excavation give the building the colours of the land it came out of.

Location: Stellenbosch, South Africa
Year: 2021
Status: Completed
Typology: Hospitality
Coordinates: 33.9321° S, 18.8602° E

Gallery

A closer look.

Two images. Select any one to see it full screen.

02 / 02A curved concrete wall wrapping the approach to the cellars

Drawings

Drawn to be built.

Plan, section and elevation, from the point of arrival to the press house, each drawn to scale on the structural grid.

The ground floor, set out on a 6 × 5 m structural grid.36 × 15 m · 5 rooms · 540 m² ground floor

Materials

Made of few things.

Three materials, chosen at the source and left to age. Nothing is painted to look like something else.

Charred Oak
Scorched the old Japanese way, oiled, then left alone. The char is the weatherproofing, and it deepens with every winter.
Fair-faced Concrete
Cast once, in timber formwork we draw ourselves. The tie holes stay: they are how you read the pour.
Low-iron Glass
Without the green cast of ordinary glass, so the landscape reads true from edge to edge.