The Duncan family faced the challenge of a lifetime when a trash bin fire claimed their historic Silver Oak Napa Valley Winery in 2006, destroying $2 million of its famous cabernet sauvignon and almost all structures on the property. They turned adversity on its head, rebuilding the site into a green winery—the world’s first to be awarded the LEED platinum certification.
This fall, they apply finishing touches to their second green winery in Alexander Valley, Sonoma County. They stop to share a fascinating design and delivery journey, where sustainability is still the hero of the project, with Autodesk’s RedShift.
Sustainable Wine By Design
Inside the world’s first “Living Building” to produce a cabernet sauvignon, interesting innovations are underway this winter. It will likely set the standard for sustainable wine production as wineries vie for growing market segments in the US and abroad.
There are the usual design additions one would expect to see in a LEED building, like solar panels and energy efficient LED lighting. The Alexander Valley winery location will also employ new advancements in water conservation and filtration, like recycled hot water and a membrane bioreactor filtration system.
Other features make the winery a beautiful place to visit for longtime fans and visitors. The facility has ample natural lighting throughout, reclaimed redwood siding, and a popular clothing material used as insulation.
The owners are motivated to be good stewards of the land, but they know that sustainability should be cost-effective to be truly impactful. CEO David Duncan doesn’t believe “green at any cost” proves anything, so the team leaned on Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology to make crucial moves that would save time and money.
BIM is the gold standard in technology that enables faster, more efficient project delivery. This holds especially true when working with unique, innovative projects that use cutting-edge materials and aim to achieve sustainability certifications. BIM collaboration software can make sharing and coordination during the design phase easy, which creates in-built efficiencies and upfront cost-savings that add value to your green building project.
With Revit to aid upfront design coordination, Silver Oak’s architect and building contractor collaborated in a cloud-enabled shared BIM model. They fixed several potential problems early on in the BIM process before reaching the construction phase, which saved them time and rework. Autodesk’s BIM 360 facilitated collaboration: BIM 360 Glue proved especially useful for subcontractors during constructability review. They also used it to cross-check construction documentation in the field against the green winery’s BIM design model.
