ABSTRACT
The National Wine Centre is conceived as the flagship of Australia's burgeoning wine industry, acting simultaneously as a cultural and education centre, and as a major tourist attraction. The centre will inform visitors of every aspect of the wine industry, including wine-growing, winemaking and new technologies being developed. It will contain an interactive exhibition, a comprehensive range of wine-tasting and educational facilities, restaurant, offices of Australian wine industry organisations and a functional space for events. The semi-circular planning is devised to continually associate interiors with landscape, while encouraging visitors to experience each component of the centre in a sequential manner. The building forms are partly inspired by segments of wine barrels and partly by the skeletal nature of winter vines. The layout of the building components preserves significant trees on the site, with the new plantings radially oriented to focus views into the gardens. The building materials have been chosen to evoke both the traditional nature of the wine industry, timber and rammed earth, as well as aluminium and steel suggestive of the modern, scientific approach that has helped establish Australia's reputation in the wine industry.
