Eight stone pillars, a helical dome — and constant temperature year-round.
The winemaker behind Ronc dai Luchis came to us with an ambitious vision: a barricaia and tasting room worthy of his wines. The existing structure — the collection basin of an old cowshed — offered a blank canvas. Pietrantiche carried out an initial survey of forms and dimensions, then developed a series of rendered proposals before arriving at a definitive executive project.
The final architectural form is a dome vault with a helical cross-section and a central pillar, divided into eight segments by eight relief brick arches and eight stone pillars. The entrance is shaped by an elliptical arch on a curved plan, with a groin that intersects one of the eight segments — creating a threshold that feels both ancient and entirely deliberate.
From the outset, we chose to work with the site rather than against it. The constant presence of groundwater seeping through the existing walls and floor became the cornerstone of a fully passive climate system: an air chamber was created beneath the floor, between the new and old walls, and between the vault and the original ceiling. Air enters below the floor, absorbs the groundwater temperature — a constant 12 to 15 degrees — circulates between the walls and vaulted ceiling, and is expelled through a 6.5-metre chimney stack.
The result is a barricaia with a perfectly stable interior temperature throughout the year, with no air conditioning, dry internal walls, and no mould — all at zero running cost.
