Photo: Nic Lehoux

Martin’s Lane Winery

Kelowna, Canada

Martin’s Lane Winery traces the topography of the land to support the gravity‑flow winemaking process taking place inside. Tucked into a hillside in Kelowna, British Columbia, the building’s rectangular form features a central “fracture” that opens the interior to daylight and splits public and production zones. Production spaces devoted to the sequential process of wine making follow the downhill slope of the site, while the public education areas cantilever out over the vineyards, offering sweeping views of nearby Okanagan Lake.

Design Principal
Tom Kundig

Form & Function

The building’s rectangular form splits at a central fracture: gravity-fed production areas follow the steeply sloping hillside, while hospitality areas cantilever over the landscape.

Gravity‑Fed Winemaking

The wine production areas of Martin’s Lane step down the hillside, taking advantage of natural gravitational forces to minimize manipulation of delicate grapes. From the upper-most grape receiving area, fruit journeys downhill through the fermentation and settling areas, down to the bottling room on the above-ground level, and finally to the below-ground barrel storage. This approach to winemaking honors both the landscape and the craft of winemaking, while reducing energy use by about 10% and decreasing the amount of water needed to clean production vessels.

A Passive Energy Approach to Winemaking

Along with the gravity-fed production process, Martin’s Lane relies primarily on natural ventilation, unique among wineries, which typically must rely on extensive mechanical conditioning to maintain stable interior temperatures. Operable windows combine with the building’s topographical placement and orientation to draw in cool breezes from the lake, which funnel through the building to provide natural ventilation. The barrel cellar, set back into the hillside, takes advantage of stable earth temperatures to maintain a constant, ideal temperature of 54 degrees F and 75% humidity.

Visitor Experience

Throughout Martin’s Lane, educational spaces are woven into the manufacturing areas, including a tasting room, dining room, and visitor walkways that offer intimate glimpses of the production process. Visitors enter the facility through a rough formed concrete tunnel. From here, they progress to an education and tasting room accented by a glass and perforated‑steel wall that overlooks the barrel storage area, highlighting the production and craft of wine. A custom‑designed and fabricated spiral steel staircase—inspired by the curling sequence of grapevine growth—leads up to a larger tasting room and visitor experience area, featuring perforated steel on the outside and solid steel inside.

Engaging the Landscape

The dual programs within Martin’s Lane give the building its form and create numerous connections to the surrounding landscape. The design’s central intersection incorporates an expansive line of clerestory windows, allowing natural daylight to fill the production areas and opening to views of the surrounding vineyards and natural landscape. Tasting rooms and other visitor-oriented spaces likewise are oriented to offer expansive vistas across the vineyards, hillside and Okanagan Lake. The building’s materiality—including weathered corrugated steel siding that mirrors the color of surrounding pine trees’ bark—further integrates the building with its environment.

The building is split into two parts, with one part literally following the land, and the other part following the horizon line. My favorite element of the project is the magic that happens when these two parts of the building come together. Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA

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