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'Green' distillery wins third award

Posted: 03/06/2010

A new 'green' malt whisky distillery in Roseisle, Morayshire, the first major new distillery in Scotland for 30 years, has won the Commercial Project category at the Scottish Design Awards 2010. This success follows two recent awards for the distillery in the RICS Scotland 2010 Awards where it won Sustainability Project of the Year and the overall Project of the Year.

The rural distillery, with a potential output of 10 million litres of malt whisky per year, was designed to be highly energy-efficient and technically advanced, as well as architecturally sensitive to its visual and environmental impact.

George Reynolds, Project Director for Austin-Smith:Lord, commented, "Winning a Scottish Design Award is a fantastic accolade. There is a proud history of world-class industrial architecture in Scotland and the Roseisle distillery project takes that spirit into the 21st century. Fusing traditional craft, highly complex process engineering and innovative techniques in resource-efficient design, the building creates a confident architectural statement with care and consideration for the superb rural setting.

We welcome the generous and positive response the project has received from all quarters. We are delighted to accept this award that acknowledges the quality of this signature project which is a landmark for Moray, our practice, our project partners and, most importantly, our client Diageo."

The building is a modern interpretation of the traditional still house and maximizes natural ventilation and daylight. The architects Austin-Smith: Lord worked closely with the distiller's production team and engineers, AECOM, to accommodate evolving designs. Stack-effect natural ventilation was incorporated into the design to reduce overheating within the still house (air is introduced at low-level and expelled at high-level and some hot water is recovered for use in the maltings. A water reclamation plant aims to recycle 300,000m3 of liquid produced by the distillery as potable water, thus helping to replenish its intake. The draff (grain remaining after mashing) is used as biomass fuel to generate the steam that charges the stills.

Additional energy is conserved by supplying the malting plant with surplus heat from the process. The impressive plant sizes dictated the overall scale of the building's 3,000m2 gross internal area. The layout and massing of this stunning building express the three main processes of whisky-making - mashing, fermentation and distilling.

Each section was afforded a distinct volume and architectural style. For architectural reasons the mash house was designed with a higher roof than necessary in order to maintain the proportionality of the building and a 'cathedral space' was created within the still house, the 8m high copper stills are displayed like highly crafted sculptural objects.

The innovative approach to waste and heat recovery resulted in the building achieving a BREEAM 'Excellent' Rating and a Saltire Commendation in the Engineering Category.
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