The Macallan Distillery and Visitor Experience joins the list of 18 British projects nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award and is the only new-build industrial distillery to be nominated by a panel of experts and associations of architects from across Europe.
The award is granted every two years to acknowledge and reward quality architectural production in Europe. This year the focus is on projects in which design and sustainability are fundamentally entwined.
The Macallan is an exemplar of integrated design, which has demanded highly skilled construction, successfully bringing together under the same undulating roof, an industrial distillery with a busy visitor experience centre.
Cut into the slope of the landscape, the distillery takes its cues from ancient Scottish earthworks and plays a direct part in sustaining the local beauty of Speyside. It uses natural and sustainable materials in the 13,000m2 timber roof, wildflower meadow and utilises fuel ash within the concrete substructure to mitigate the use of cement.
As an advanced manufacturing facility, it maximises the use of steam generated from an adjacent forestry commissioned biomass plant as the principal energy source for processing. This contributes 90% of the production’s heating demands from a sustainable source.
Heat from the distilling process is recycled and actively captured for the hot water and heating demands of the visitor centre and control block. All cooling-water extracted from the River Spey for condensing the spirit is returned at the river’s natural temperature and waste product from the mashing process is used to fuel biomass so generating electricity.
Info rsh-p.com
ARCHITECTS Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
CLIENT Edrington
LOCATION Speyside, UK
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER Arup
SERVICES ENGINEER Arup
FIRE ENGINEER Arup
MAIN CONTRACTOR Robertsons Construction Group
PROCESS CONTRACTOR Forsyths
TIMBER ROOF Wiehag
LIGHTING CONSULTANT Speirs + Major
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Gillespies
YEAR 2012-2018
PHOTO Joas Souza
