The Architectural Ingenuity In Renovating Château de Beaucastel

To design a renovation for Château de Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, France, the architects looked toward the earth below their feet. Château de Beaucastel, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Rhone Valley, France MODELISATIONS STUDIO MUMBAI When I learned that after seven years the multimillion dollar renovations to Château de Beaucastel were completed, I drove up the road to learn more. There I met co-proprietor Charles Perrin and architect Louis-Antoine Grégo.

On a crisp April morning we paced together past vineyards and through the new facility. The Perrin family form an integral part of the fabric of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine region in the Rhone Valley. The first ever wine appellation in France was created in 1936 for Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and the great grandfather of Charles Perrin was on the committee that established its boundaries.

“The vines that we see here have never, ever been treated with chemicals,” Charles said as we paced over soil. His grandfather Jacques Perrin had switched to organic farming in the 1950’s, when the concept was still alien to neighbors. Rounded stones lay sprawled beneath vines, remnant of glacial erosion.

Below these is a layer of clay and under that is hard sand. The stones on the surface protect vines from heat in the summer and frost during winter and allow rain to soak down to roots rather than to evaporate. Any moisture that remains on vine leaves is dried by the Mistral wind, which can blast at 75 miles per hour (120 kmph).

Interior of Château de Beaucastel, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Rhone Valley, France Nicolas Facenda The Beaucastel château dates to 1687 and has survived religious wars and revolution. The Perrin family arrived in the region in 1909 and began a business of boxing olives and selling them to a grocery store. Eventually they produced wine.

Nine family members—brothers, cousins and parents—now work together in managing the estate. After the grandmother of Charles died in 2016, this group decided to renovate. They hosted an architecture competition and received 360 applications from 26 countries.

After narrowing entrants down to 10 candidates they selected the team of Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai in India, together with Louis-Antoine Grégo of Studio Méditérranée in nearby Avignon. These architects’ developed an initial three-pronged strategy: to retain the essence of the property’s characteristics, to co-generate design ideas with family members and to build new structures predominantly with materials already on site. “This was a rather brilliant idea,” Perrin said.

“Much of the world’s waste is from the building industry. But 80% of what you see was sourced here. We didn’t destroy buildings; we slowly deconstructed them piece by piece and sorted out the iron, concrete, everything.

We made a huge hole and went down 12 meters [39 feet] and through 15 million years of geological history.” Structure and vineyards at Château de Beaucastel, Rhone Valley, France Tom Mullen The notion of using materials from the site proved initially contentious. “Half the family said, ‘It’s crazy, it’s utopian.

’ Half the family said, ‘It’s great.’ We had arguments as a family, but in the end still choose Louise-Antoine and Bijoy. We signed the papers in 2018.

We thought it would take three years but it took seven, with Covid in the middle.” Jain and Grégo had previously worked together. “During the first part of the work Bijoy was here almost every two months, and later came every six months.

But I met him twice a week on WhatsApp,” Grégo said. “I admit that Bijoy is a bit like my spiritual master, my mentor.” The essence of the new set of buildings is that they are constructed using rammed earth, what is known as pisé de terre in France, or just pisé .

This basically involves compacting natural materials such as earth and gravel, extruding the air trapped inside and increasing density. Rammed earth has excellent compressive strength and is used without reinforcing steel bars. Historically, the technique was widespread in France—often used when bricks or a stone mason were unaffordable.

“Perhaps a tenth of the city of Lyon is built of pisé,” Grégo said. “There is a lot of pisé in the whole Croix-Rousse district and in quarters of the old town. People don't know that because it is covered with plaster.

It's just 100% compacted earth. There's absolutely nothing else in it.” For pisé to avoid water saturation, it is best avoided as a foundation touching the earth, or as a roof.

“Pisé has to have boots and a hat,” Perrin explained. “It can't touch the ground because it will absorb water through capillary action, and it can't have stagnant water on top. It has to be covered and protected.

” Pisé, or rammed earth wall construction, Château de Beaucastel, France Tom Mullen During construction at Beaucastel, traditional concrete supplemented pisé for foundations and for the base of walls. Yet that decision created its own novel challenge. Concrete is made by mixing together gravel, sand, water and some form of ‘glue’—which is cement and perhaps additional lime, depending on the strength desired.

Rocks and sand came from the earth. However, the architects found that the soil on site had too much sand and not enough natural gravel. They developed an idea: they would crush materials taken from former buildings freshly dismantled.

The result was that 40% of their concrete derives from repurposed materials. “We used everything we had here. We wouldn’t waste anything,” Grégo explained.

“We found pieces of my grandmother’s bedroom, pieces of glass from the roof. In the end their idea was quite brilliant, and done by default actually,” Charles added. The pisé provides earth toned walls that appear to meld in with the surrounding landscape.

Lintels above doors, and sills below windows, are made from stones imported from Mount Ventoux, located some 18 miles (30 kilometers) away. We next paced through a peaceful garden of endemic Provençal sage, rosemary and euphorbia. While we did, Grégo described the fundamental principles of architectural engineering their team adapted.

Window on an outdoor curtain wall at Château de Beaucastel, France JEREMIE LEON “There were three points important to us,” Grégo explained. “First, the use of earth from the site for construction. Second, the use of natural ventilation, or air conditioning.

The third major architectural idea was not to waste water.” To achieve natural air conditioning, ‘wind towers’ have been structurally incorporated into outer walls, like towers on a castle. They include open grilles facing northwest toward the source of the regionally predominant wind known as the Mistral.

Air enters through these grilles, descends vertically some 30 feet (10 meters) and then passes horizontally over four massive swimming pool size water baths, each with a maximum depth of 6.5 feet (two meters). This reduces the temperature of air before it flows upward again into the interior of buildings.

“At that depth the earth is at 14 degrees [57 degrees Fahrenheit], and so is the water,” Grégo explained. “Even in the middle of August there is a cooling effect thanks to these towers.” To keep these cooling tanks filled, rainwater is harvested from building roofs, which have a surface area of 1.

7 acres (7,000 square meters). These channel water into the underground pools, with a capacity of approximately a half million gallons (1,800 cubic meters). When it begins raining the first flush of water may include dust from roofs, and so all initial torrents are diverted away and left unused.

In case there is a deluge, water is diverted away from the pools to prevent them from overflowing. To monitor water levels, three sets of controls are used—an electronic eye, a mechanical float valve and humans who can, as a last resort, use manual controls to divert water flows. This underground water is used not only to cool air, but also to clean equipment and floors in the winery as well as to water plants in the garden.

Constructing these water cisterns required sinking a hole 39 feet (12 meters) deep below what is now a courtyard space used by workers and for storing equipment. Wood used in construction is oak or else Douglas fir sourced from southern France. Fir is fire resistant and does not require any chemical treatments—which is critical to avoid impacting the taste of wine in the cellars.

Below ground cellar structure, Château de Beaucastel, France Nicolas Facenda We walked down to the cellars. “Same construction technique,” Grégo explained. “No metal.

The lines are pure, but techniques are the same as they were 2,000 years ago with the Romans. The force of compression of earth holds it all together.” “We're under the buildings,” Perrin emphasized.

“The technical prowess was making earthen vaults like buildings, but without any reinforcement. There will be several tons above our heads now.” The water cisterns were located a floor below us.

We passed ventilation grilles in the walls through which cooled air passed. One wall displays the layers of raw earth below the surface above. This ‘truth window’ now reveals geological stratigraphy.

“A geotechnical engineer can see this as an open historical map of the land,” Grégo explained. It tells millions of years of stories.” Co-proprietor of Château de Beaucastel Charles Perrin (right) and architect Louis-Antoine Grégo Tom Mullen Because pisé is no longer commonly utilized as a construction material, the project required learning on the job.

“You have to be open to reinventing yourself in the middle of it all,” Louise-Antoine said. “It requires certain agility.” I remarked how some of the interior resembled a chapel.

“It’s like an underground cloister, with the slightly sacred idea of wine without religion,” Grégo added. As we inspected massive tanks that hold wine, Charles explained some of their wine making techniques. Château de Beaucastel has 56 vine plots and their juices are vinified separately.

“Complementary grape varieties bring color, spice and fruit. It's the great tradition of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. We taste from all these vats for almost six months and then blend.

We next age wines in this cellar for 18 months in casks that hold between 4,000 and 7,000 liters. We bottle a cuvée and leave it for between four and six months before selling. Between harvest and the first bottle drunk, there is a period of between two and two and a half years.

That's the process.” And the wine? Château de Beaucastel 1998 Hommage Jacques Perrin Tom Mullen I tasted wine twice from one bottle—both in the cellar and later alone—and was mildly bewildered. For the first time in 17 years of visiting hundreds of wineries and writing about wine, I gave a first ever ‘100’ point score to the balanced, complex river of subtle flavors in a glass of 1998 Hommage a Jacques Perrin Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

Fittingly, the word ‘hommage’ means tribute. This applies not only to Monsieur Perrin, but to the earth on which the family estate now rests. Château de Beaucastel at present, Rhone Valley, France IWAN BAAN.