Distilleries as Vessels for Architectural Renewal

Founder and Director Andrea was recently invited to contribute to the RIAS Review on the theme of ‘reinvention’ for the Autumn Issue.

Full text below:

It’s not often that an architectural practice is present at the birth of a new type of building, but Organic Architects were fortunate enough to have this experience  fifteen years ago as the craft whisky distilling sector was being born. We were lucky enough to be part of this movement along with a few other practices which have reinvented the whisky distillery for the new century and expanded their purpose  from just distilling.

Whisky distilleries have evolved from the traditional white rendered buildings with the iconic Charles Doig pagoda roofs, to high-tech buildings featuring glass frontages displaying stills and visitor facilities reflecting their important brand and place in the Scottish landscape. The reinvention of this building type has been a perfect fit for the re-adaptation of derelict mills such as Castletown Mill near Thurso or Ahascragh Mill in Galway or farm steadings such as Nc’Nean Distillery in Morvern and Lindores Abbey Distillery in Newburgh.

Whisky distilling had been a purely industrial process from the second world war onwards. During the 50s, 60s and 70s the PLC distillers built functional sheds in some of Scotland’s most beautiful areas. Licensing laws kept the lawful minimum size of copper stills to 1,800L in order to prevent illicit distilling, so it was only done by very large multinationals, often the owners had no interest in the places they made their Scotch.

When this law changed in 2006 to remove the minimum still size, the craft distilling industry was born. First the gin distillers took advantage, then the Scotch whisky industry realised that whisky could be made in smaller amounts, albeit production is an order of magnitude more complex than gin making.

Around this time a market for single malts was expanding. Formerly a distillery was an individual ingredient of a big blend such as Johnny Walker. The makers of these individual whiskies were often located in far-flung islands and glens of rural Scotland, unchanged, perhaps ignored by their owners. At the same time the realisation was also dawning that these buildings might not just be factories, but interesting places to visit in their own right, each different, often unchanged for centuries and each one a sensory experience.

Our involvement in this sector started when we won a competition held by Adelphi, a bottling company, to design their new visitor focused distillery on a sensitive site at Ardnamurchan in the western highlands. Adelphi were planning to be one of the first to make whisky production into a tourism opportunity and wanted a building synonymous with the traditional distilleries of the past. The resulting Ardnamurchan Distillery is now one of many whisky venues which have become a key aspect part of a visit to Scotland, a sector that now welcomes 2 million visitors each year. It was clear from very early on that the buildings are integral to the branding of the products which are made there. The practice works hand in hand with experiential designers from a very early stage in the development of the project, sometimes we are even involved in the brand development of the distillery business itself.

Each client has different aspirations and locations for their distilleries so it makes for an interesting building type. No one design fits all but there is always a common factor where the clients want the visitor experiences to be as significant as the process and reflect the brand and the stills to be clearly visible; something which was not originally important in traditional distillery design.

A number of our distillery designs have been located in historic buildings, at Lindores Abbey the distillery was located within the Scheduled Ancient Monument. At Castletown, on the north coast of Caithness, a new distillery is being built within the derelict mill as it is being refurbished. It is hard to imagine a more complex use for a building with highly constrained fabric which is both a Listed Building and Building at Risk.

What these conversions do is lend their ancient built character to the new brands they contain, an essential purpose in an industry which values heritage so highly. Lindores can rightly claim to have been the site of distilling in 1494; the new business says that they just took 500 years off distilling. In the case of Stannergill Distillery, formerly the Castletown Mill, traditional conservation work is taking place, including new dry stone walls, Caithness slate stone roofs,  giving the atmosphere of tradition and evoke an established character to visitors, even when the business is relatively new.

Not all of the building conversions are historic though. A disused crab processing shed on Benbecula became the Benbecula Distillery with the addition of a lighthouse containing a pot still, perhaps the world's first distillery within a lighthouse. Certainly it’s a striking image that provides a brand character for the business as it markets its product around the world.

The practice has enthusiastically focussed on whisky buildings from the first project and really from the birth of this new craft sector. We have now worked on around seventy distilleries and can profess a deep understanding of how the buildings help to produce spirit effectively and how they  promote brands to make the best of the beautiful places they are located.

This reinvention of a building type is rarely seen in the modern profession. It provides the opportunity to design individual buildings in stunning landscapes, combining multiple uses within one building  and with longevity in mind.