Mt Difficulty Winery to get Living Roof
09 Feb 2012
Central Otago Pinot Noir is a world renown drop of red and Mt Difficulty Wines are sure to feature right up there in any decent NZ wine list. Due to the increasing popularity of their wine, Mt Difficulty have had to scale up their boutique winery to cope with the demand. In an effort to cater for the larger volumes of wine, a new barrel store is being constructed as well as an extension to the overlooking tasting room and restaurant.
Temperature control is a vital component of wine making and was a key factor in the design. Matt Dicey comments "in many ways the design revolved around the functionality of the space. In an effort to keep the temperature at the correct constant temperature the building is set into the earth hillside at the back sides and a 150mm deep vegetated roof is being installed on the insulated roof slab. By spending a bit more money at the start on the design and construction, we will end up saving a lot on money on heating and cooling costs".
Stormwater360 was commissioned to carry out the design and installation of the living roof. Using the LiveRoof pre-vegetated modular system, Stormwater360 contracted a local grower to propagate and grow the 4800 modules. Roxburgh's Central Otago Property Services are currently growing the modules with a mix of local native grasses, wild thyme and locally sourced stonecrop sedums. Stormwater360 designer Greg Yeoman discussed the design. "the brief was to incorporate local grasses and stonecrop sedum. From this we developed a palette of grasses suited to the lightweight pumice based growing medium and mixed in locally sourced thyme for aromatics and sedum for colour ". The design layout interacts with the surrounding hillside where 4,000+ native plants and trees are being re-established as part of the development. "the flowing lines of the plant groupings emulate the hill contours. The dramatic hillside is a great backdrop with the scarred sluice marks from the old gold rush days and rugged central Otago grasses"
Installation of the living roof is scheduled for late March 2012 and due to ease of installation of the pre-vegetated modular system is intended to take around 2-3 days to complete. The roof will be able to be viewed looking down from the Mt Difficulty restaurant and tasting room while enjoying a glass your favorite wine.