E.&J. Gallo Winery by Gensler: 2017 Best of Year Winner for Large Consumer-Goods Office

One would expect the world’s largest family-owned winery, founded in 1933, to have a spectacular headquarters, not only to house its workforce but also to showcase the 90 brands. “This is much more than just another building,” Interior Design Hall of Fame member Arthur Gensler says. “It drives creativity and productivity. It’s also this generation of Gallos making a statement that their company can compete with the best.”

Sensitive to existing buildings on the campus, the newcomer is similarly cast-in-place concrete, this time clad in white precast concrete. “Besides epitomizing California modernist architecture, concrete has been used in hot climates for thousands of years for its thermal properties,” Hall of Fame member Collin Burry, a design principal, points out. Organization of the two-story, 148,000-square-foot structure is predicated, Burry continues, on “three rectangular volumes connected by two atriums.” A steel canopy introduces the entry atrium, which furthermore features a site-specific lighting installation by David Weeks Studio that blows people away. Another atrium, with light-diffusing louvers, and two of the volumes are dedicated to workplace. The third volume, a bar shape, contains the café, a wine-tasting room, and a conference center on the ground level, the creative studio above. Throughout, window walls connect the building to the surrounding mature oak and pine trees—and to its heritage.

Project Team: Kelly Dubisar; Benjamin Parco; Caroll Crump; Douglas Oleson; Brent Van Gunten; Jeremy Baird; Michael Townsend; Josh Berliner; Marissa Everling; Jane Greenthal; Lisa Hsiao; Tom Horton; Reuben Verkamp; Eric Scavetta; Krystal Grubb; Colin Speer.

> See more from the December 2017 issue of Interior Design

> See all 2017 Best of Year winners and honorees