The Mechanized Cellar

The Mechanized Cellar is a multi-function teaching cellar comprised of unique double-height machines splayed in an array around a custom central tasting table used as a surface for projection during wine tastings. The new 60m2 (650sf) double height wine cellar is built into the corner of an old gymnasium, now transformed into the new PICH Culinary School outside of Shanghai. The school board came to our design team with a big challenge. Our team was asked to create an exceptional showcase cellar for the new school with a total budget for design and construction (50usd/SF). Additionally, the cellar needed to also serve as a teaching and tasing space because every space at the school must serve as an active learning tool.

The most significant challenge we faced was the culinary school's large requirement of wine bottles from around the world to provide the highest quality of wine education to their students. In total, a 5,000 bottle minimum was requested and covered much of the floor area. This limited area and budget pushed the design team to think about how to free up the floor area for teaching, tastings, and tours by using the room's height. Inspired by the school's original industrial and technical heritage, the design team looked to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Filippo Brunelleschi, Gustave Eiffel, and George Washington Gale Ferris Junior. These brave artists, architects, and engineers had ventured across boundaries and disciplines, inventing their tools and structures in their exploration for new forms and wonders. Like these great inventors, we wanted to use engineering and invention to create a new wine cellar typology and wonder of our own. As a result, the team designed an automated 1m squared revolving wine stack with a capacity of 552 bottles. Eleven stacks total (6072 bottles) circumpass the oval tasting table designed to hold one entire class of sixteen to twenty students and visitors. Aside from the stacks and table, the school board decided to leave the rest of the room primarily untouched, conserving cost and focusing on their new favorite Industrial and Technical Teaching Cellar.

Due to safety reasons, the school's board would not allow ladders in the double-height cellar. So the team developed an automated revolving wine stack that would not require ladders and would bring the bottles directly down to the student using an app and the internet of things to solve this problem. We worked with the fabricators through multiple iterations and prototypes to study the perfect way for the wine crates to move without rocking or shaking the wine. As a result, the final product removed the need for a ladder in the double-height space, and the spacial efficiency was maximized by 200%. Currently, the cellar holds eleven stacks, each containing 552 bottles in 1m square. In total, the cellar exceeds the required capacity by more than 1,000 bottles while freeing up the floor space for teaching, tasting, and tourism.

Design Team:

AUGUST GREEN:

Kyle MertensMeyer - Design Director

Consultants:

Wine Consultant - Godolphin

Photography - Rob Cleary Photography