This project is an experiment in recycling demolished concrete in order to fashion new structures. The present site is filled with piles of concrete blocks, which, through the natural process of demolition, have become a new material resource for a Bourbon distillery. These industrial “stones” are amassed into a series of spaces inspired by the forms of natural stone caves. By contrasting the brutalism of the waste material with the fine finish of bronze sheets, the building celebrates the extremes of either material.

 

The distillery CONCRETE* contains fermentation and distillation rooms of over 6,000 sf and a rickhouse of 12,000 sf and is equipped with tasting rooms and offices. The recycled walls, like fortified medieval stone walls around the fermentation area, moderate the temperature fluctuations of Boston. The thermal walls also store the heat generated from Bourbon production and condition the offices and tasting rooms on the southeast side of the fermentation zones. At night, the tremendous loading dock ramping between the main building and the rickhouse becomes a night club, which consumes the liquor produced during the day.