(2006) Viticultural Center

client : BMMI
typology : Mixed-Use Retail & Commercial
services : Architecture
where : Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain

With a client brief centered on creating a “lifestyle destination around a core business function”, the 5,500 sqm center brings together a carefully curated blend of wine culture, hospitality, and corporate functionality. Programmatically, the project integrates a fine wine accessories corner, a specialized bookshop, a wine tasting bar, promotional displays, cigar and parlour rooms, a cafeteria, restaurant, professional kitchens, and climate-controlled cellars—alongside the client’s administrative offices. All elements are organized around two key architectural anchors: a two-story barrel-shaped volume marking the southern corner facing the Gulf Hotel, and three concealed basement-level corporate cellars.

To heighten the visitor’s sensory experience while mediating the surrounding urban fabric, the landscape design adopts the language of a working winery: gravel paths, reflecting pools, mature trees, wooden barrels, and a vine-inspired canopy entrance. The result is a neutral yet immersive buffer zone that transitions the visitor from city to vineyard-like intimacy. The client’s desire for discretion led to the placement of corporate cellars below grade, drawing inspiration from the historic subterranean vaults of Berry Bros. & Rudd, the esteemed London wine merchant known for its centuries-old cellars.

Much like its London counterpart, the Port cellar complex is designed for both corporate and private events, supported by adjacent temporary storage spaces and convenient parking access. These spaces also accommodate the client’s high-profile en primeur wine tastings, offering a discreet, functional, and atmospheric environment for learning, sampling, and purchasing.

The architecture employs 400mm-thick steel gabion walls, loosely packed with reclaimed local grey marble fragments. These porous volumes conceal a continuous horizontal glass façade, creating a layered skin that acts as a metaphoric screen—filtering light by day and glowing from within by night. This dual envelope lends the project both privacy and intrigue.

At the building’s corner, the architecture becomes more expressive. The double-height glass volume reveals the project’s signature internal feature—a monumental barrel form—visibly clad in vertical bands of transparent PVC bearing rotating wine label graphics, serving as both a celebration of viticulture and dynamic branding for the center.