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Project: Loisium Wine Center and Hotel, Langenlois (Austria)
2. Prize of Category "Shop"
On the outskirts of the historic centre of Langenlois a wine experience world was built within a construction period of one year of the initiator families Haimerl, Nidetzky and Haimerl consisting of historical cellars and a new appealing visitor centre. The architectural concept of Steven Holl, NY of the whole construction (cellars - visitor centre - hotel) plans for the visitor centre a new interpretation of the geometry of the cellars as a light providing window formation in the walls and the roof on a body which is geometrical similar to a cube. The extraordinary space effect of the interior which partly has three storeys, is originated by the specific application of natural and artificial light, light reflections and light effects. The inclination of five grade southbound to the 
cellars, is a gesture of turning to the historical underground cellars. The visitor centre is equipped with a cafe, shops, seminar room, administration and wine tasting and serves as starting and end point of the tour through the "underworld" which is connected with the visitor centre with a new tunnel of 90 m. By entering the vineyard in the range of the cafe there is a plane ornament basin on the tunnel ceiling. Through waterproofed portholes water reflections can be seen in the event area which is situated underneath. The applied materials cork (at the walls), aluminium (as room creating facade casing), green recycled glass (for bent interior panes) and ash (for the furniture, also designed by Steven Holl) are all materials of the viniculture surrounding and vine production.
The basic structure of the visitor centre consists of a reinforced concrete texture of sheets and plates with a thickness of 25 cm which is very slim for these wall heights. One third of the structure is embeded into the ground as the ground-floor. Ceiling joists in form of a Y and interior panes in a special exposed concrete texture of a height up to 17 m cause a very interesting effect of the interior of the visitor centre. Over a basic structure of the tilted cube of reinforced concrete, a complex casing out of marine aluminium plates with a thickness of 4 mm and the size 1*2 acts as an ornament shell. Openings in the marine aluminium facade can only be seen as vertical oriented narrow indentations and are lined like the facade itself in the whole soffit area with aluminium plates following the bent coarse of the outer profile.
