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A Gin Distillery for the Royal Docks, East London

Part 1 Project 2005
Emmie Stewart-Parker
 University of Cambridge | UK
Remnants of an industrial and maritime past are preserved in the fabric of the Royal Docks, East London. This design takes advantage of the site’s history and scale whilst injecting aspects of leisure and tourism. The scheme comprises a distillery and bottling hall, a gin bar, and greenhouses to grow ‘Botanicals’, the herbs to flavour gin.

The building and surrounding urban plan present a dichotomy, bringing together the self-sustaining aspects of nature with the transformational properties of science. The heart of the building is the still room bar, where the dramatic process of production is juxtaposed with product consumption.




The project addressed an area east of King George V Dock in London. We investigated the provision of a manufacturing and/or distribution facility as a catalyst to improved local identity and social interaction in the vast, disjointed and windswept topography. Students proposed their own facility. Emmie developed a distillery supported by green housing for the production of botanicals. She has been extremely resourceful at all stages of the project: outreach to the population beyond the site, a range of activities which define and invite interaction on the site itself, extraordinary refinement and control of the building to serve complex needs.
2005
The Site: an island formed between two original entrances to the Royal Docks.
Gin Distillery: this design for a gin distillery takes advantage of the site’s industrial and maritime past whilst injecting new levels of leisure and tourism.
Outreach.
Inreach: Gin distillery tourism.
Inhabitation.
The herbs used to flavour gin are grown in greenhouses on site. The reinstated dock entrance creates a new axis along which the building sits.
Site Organisation: the main site components comprise a distillery and bottling hall and herb growing facilities. There is also an apothecary, herb shop and perfumery.
Process Organisation: Gin manufacture can be divided into three constituent parts: supply, process and storage. ‘Process’ and ‘storage’ have most impact on the building’s design.
Ground Floor Plan with Basement Plan Inset.
Sections and Elevations: the storage area, on the building's southern side, sits at a lower level, behind a rammed earth wall. In contrast, the process strip exploits northern light through its steel structure and GRP cladding.
The Still Room Bar: this is the heart of the scheme, where alcohol and botanicals, science and nature, and production and consumption are united. The bar and still room are treated as one space with the gin stills having large impact in the main bar area.
Detailed Section: the still room bar is conceived as an excavated London basement, with a rammed earth floor and weighty furniture. The concrete wall behind the bar is used to store glasses.
Environmental Strategy: the building makes use of stacks in the still room bar for natural ventilation. Spent botanicals from the stills are used in a biomass boiler and as compost for the growing herbs.
Perspective Section of Still Room Bar.
Still Room Bar: the placing of glasses containing gin and tonic within notches in the concrete tables is a microcosmic version of the entire building: a light, refined object sitting within the earth.
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