Bangkok--20 Aug--TQPR
The Sala Wine Bar and Bistro, the visiting centre situated beautifully in Siam Winery’s very own Hua Hin Hills vineyard, recently won a prestigious award from “Cited by Honorary Members” category, 20+10+X award by World Architecture Community.
The Sala, designed by a former Norman foster architect Sylvia Soh, enriches the vineyard since 2008. Not only does the Sala contain a bistro with a famous vineyard inspired menu and a wine bar offering wide arrays of premium wines, from Monsoon Valley, which themselves garnered several international awards but also a retail shop enabling visitors to shop for their favorites labels of premium Thai wines, souvenirs and other quality grapes-based products such as the refreshing grape juice, grape essence, etc. with professional staff on hand to provide information.
Sylvia Soh, the talented architect who conceptualized and designed the Sala said about the first start of the project: “Khun Chalerm’s vision was to create a panoramic viewpoint on a hilltop site to admire the impressive vineyard against a backdrop of picturesque mountains.”
“The centre has to capture the iconic beauty of traditional Thai architecture while remaining undoubtedly contemporary. A harmonious relationship between building and site is to be created, not only amidst its natural and man-made landscape but also within its cultural context,” Sylvia further explained.
With that harmonious design concept in place, The Sala Wine Bar and Bistro, has finally won the heart of honorary judges and received the 20+10+X award, an international online architectural Awards program of World Architecture Community which has already reached a prestigious status with its extraordinary jury of Honorary Members and the remarkable collection of the winning projects of the first six Cycles.
This online awards program is repeated in cycles of 3 months and also contains an extensive international publication program of the results in collaboration with architectural journals in all countries. Each cycle receives approximately 1,000+ projects submitted and updated by the members in 3 months. After that, 250 projects become shortlisted for the voting process and consequently 35 winners with further 30-40 projects cited for their merit are announced in architectural media throughout the world.
The Design
The Sala building design adopted the curvilinear shape of a traditional roof structure, which can be seen from Thai houses to temples. The traditional roof structure not only functional in terms of shape but is also elegant and iconic. The final roof design was a series of curved surfaces cladded in shingles against the mountainous backdrop.
Inspired by the King’s vision of sufficient economy, the building has a mission to be sustainable and environmentally responsive. Therefore it was decided to use local materials from handmade bricks to local grown bamboos as main architectural finishes. Furthermore to save energy the building adopts strongly a passive cooling strategy. Simple design elements such as large terraces and openings encourage natural ventilation. Tall trees and bamboos are acting as sun shading devices along these facades Air-condition will only be necessary during the hotter months.
The building has a simple programme: a linear experience starts with the open-air gallery and then arriving at the retail and restaurant terraces, finally heightened at the wine tasting room where a panoramic view of the vineyard is most breath-taking.
Three main rooms, namely gallery, restaurant and wine tasting room are linked visually by a long curved brick wall, broken by a series of openings into the back of house. Back of the house includes a wine storage room, kitchen and restrooms. Wine storage is purposefully sunken into the ground to achieve a natural cooling effect. For landscape design, the main concept is to bring vine plantation around and into the building.
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