The Macallan distillery created in the Scottish Highlands

In the Scottish Highlands, the tradition of distilleries reigns supreme and many centuries-old estates host families specializing in the production of alcohol with techniques handed down from generation to generation.

The architectural firm Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners has tried to combine this idea of tradition with the best technologies in designing the new Macallan distillery.

Located on the Speyside Hills, on the Easter Elchies estate, the £ 140 million complex occupies a Victorian mill once used to produce English banknote paper and two sculptural greenhouses now used to grow the botanical ingredients used in the distillation process. .

The structure, with its dramatic and undulating shape and the hunched roofs covered with Scottish wild flowers, appears a natural extension of the landscape.

If on the outside the domes are covered with grass, on the inside, the plywood is left uncovered.

"We wanted the warmth of the timber to balance the industrial nature of the equipment," said Graham Stirk, senior partner of RSHP.

The same shared vision in the internal development of the distillery, where the copper stops (exact replicas of the first used by the company) are visible through the glass windows that go from the floor to the ceiling. As Macallan Creative Director, Ken Grier explains,

"We wanted it to be transparent, we wanted to share our secrets."

The fulcrum of the construction is the domed roof supported by several steel beams, made of rippled wood made up of 380,000 individual components, almost none the same, arranged in a geodesic shape. To achieve this, Stirk and his team developed a three-dimensional box-shaped LDF beam that would allow an arched vault system without the use of any bent wood.