BORD’s eye-catching roof makes BudaPrés cider mill a winner

Europe might have a centuries-old tradition of cider production, but its consumption remains a novelty in Hungary. But 40km west of Budapest in Öreghegy, a rural area commonly known as the ‘vineyard of Buda’, a bold new building is testimony to a new-found appetite for the drink, which is making its mark in an area usually associated with wineries. 

Budapest practice BORD Architectural Studio was appointed by a wine enthusiast father-and-son partnership to create BudaPrés – a 910m² bespoke cider-production facility at their orchard on the edge of the old village of Etyek. In an area known for good wine, with a gastronomic reputation too, the client also wanted spaces for corporate hospitality and retail, to create a destination for visitors and generate other revenue streams.

BORD’s three-level rhombus-shaped ‘tunnels’ beneath a grouping of sizeable 45° pitched roofs is its striking response to the brief – and it’s all achieved in a sensitive area designated by Hungary’s national planning policy as the equivalent of an English AONB.

BORD founder Péter Bordás describes the challenges he faced. Dotted across the hillsides are many pitched-roof wine press buildings in the local vernacular, most leading to subterranean cellars set into the hills, and their small size created one of the local planning constraints. ‘You couldn’t create any single volume bigger than 11m by 7m – their average size,’ says Bordás. ‘And there’s a rule that wall heights on newbuild structures could not exceed 3m to the roof eaves point. But as modern fermentation facilities are about 1000m², we had to find a way to stick to the regulations while creating a building that was fit for purpose.’ He adds that a further stipulation meant the ground footprint of the building could not constitute more than 3% of what was a 1.1 ha site. While most would baulk at having their hands so tied, Bordás seemed to see it as a spur for lateral thinking to solve the problem, starting by allocating 326m² allocated for the ground floor and 624m² (6%) in the basement.

Part of this, he explains, was the association of apples with Britain’s cooler, damper clime. He cannot pinpoint whether this led him to think of the famous diamond patterns of Scottish Argyle-knit jumpers or whether it was the diamond-cut crystal of traditional German Apfelwein glasses; perhaps it was both, but the result is the rhombus-shaped concrete structure hunkered east- west into a low hillside. At basement level is the ‘working’ part of the facility, with apple delivery, preparation and fermentation tanks and storage ‘cellar’ to the rear. On the ground floor, offering wide views out to the surrounding countryside, is the hospitality zone with bar, kitchens, guest areas and ‘showroom’ space; while the top floor, beneath or beside the pitched roof forms, houses administrative offices, services zone and external plant areas.

The breaking-up of the roof forms across the plan and in section was highly conscious. ‘We needed to break down the scale to match the rural buildings around so kept the roof areas within the planning guidance,’ says Bordás. And that breaking-up also released potential in section to allow views not just out, but internally up and down through the building itself. ‘While you are sampling the cider, we felt it was important to see the production technology below that helps create it,’ he adds. This aim led to the sectional machinations of the in-situ cast X-shaped concrete structure which gives immediate and deep views through the section.

Bordás is keen to point out his fascination with Le Corbusier’s Modulor and how its 2.26m dimension was instrumental in the setting out of the building, being invoked in another piece of thinking that realised the facility’s three levels – a genius reinterpretation of the planning rules for new agricultural buildings. ‘The regulations stipulated that wall heights could not be more than 3m to the eaves from ground level. What we argued was that, with our 45º cross structure and roof profiles, there was in fact no ‘wall’ at all. From this structure we then sprang the 45° roof profiles.’ With the 4.52m clear height eked out above ground for guest areas – and with no below-ground height stipulation – the practice created the new basement level, nearly 3m below the ground datum. Being a national heritage site, this canny rule-reading was scrutinised by Hungary’s national planning body, but got through. ‘With the lower floors excluded from the regulation, we could create a three-storey, 7m tall building on a site that technically might have allowed only one storey.’ 

Carrying the load of it all, chunky 400mm by 400mm exposed, fair-faced concrete columns in the basement support the 200mm thick in-situ cast concrete floor above. A little sophistry occurs with the crossed columns above which, rather than being solid, are 200mm-thick L-shaped sections that internally suggest visual continuity with the structure below, but which in fact go on to form the 200mm-thick concrete roof. A warm roof system,  waterproofing, insulation and final finish of anthracite ceramic tiles or standing seam metal sheet roofing gives an almost seamless visual line from inside to out and delivers a U-value of 0.145W/m²K. Prefabricated aluminium sections clipped to gable-end upstands give roof pitches a crisp finish. 

Solar PVs on the south-facing sides of the pitches generate enough energy to power air-source heat pumps installed above the hospitality area on an external terrace hidden between pitch-roof forms, meeting the 40kW heating demand of the main space. The air conditioning systems for the production area, which has lower working temperatures, are served by air treatment units above the cellar storage area. These are fed by remote plant situated to one side of the delivery yard to deliver its 52kW cooling demand.

An aluminium glazing system with a U-value of 1.4 W/m²K is installed at the gable ends, holding large, double-glazed panels. Already-hefty sections appear even thicker at mid-points where the profiles hide horizontal steels within, which work in tension to help restrain the concrete structure. 

The specification of tinted, low-e glass throughout was a concession that BORD had to make, despite being keen to keep them coating-free to maintain clear views into the building from outside. To deal with solar gain, brises-soleil were mooted but rejected and desired roof cantilevers were ruled out due to overhangs being included as part of the building’s overall footprint.

Internally, fair-faced concrete soffits are lined with 60mm-thick wooden slats – in fact reclaimed timber beams sawn in half – supplied by the client from an agricultural building that was being demolished. This forms a rustic counterpoint to the Swedish engineered floor system and custom wood panelling installed elsewhere, but oddly they combine to give the space an appropriate, barrel-like quality. 

Now open, the facility has brought handcrafted cider to a public that might know little about the drink and even less about the regulations that the architect had to overcome to bring the building into being. BORD meanwhile, which started out in 2006 with a small winery commission, has returned to the typology with the soon-to-open Sauska winery at Mád, in Hungary’s Tokaj wine region. Two intersecting discs set into the landscape, it’s a further sacred geometry put into the service of celebrating another of ethanol’s natural incarnations.