Image Credit : Peter Bennetts, Dianna Snape, Kristoffer Paulsen
Project Overview
Architecture is a large part of the attraction for this latest Yarra Valley destination, and Cera Stribley’s design response undeniably makes it so. Situated at the junction of Maroondah Highway and St Huberts Road, the design takes advantage of this prime location, assimilating with the undulating topography while the architecturally-striking new cellar door rises up from the landscape in one swift curve.
Authenticity is at the heart of the design concept for the cellar. This is expressed through materiality including natural wood formed concrete and copper at the entry, timber panelling, as well as solid smooth natural edged timber wine tasting benches and brown leather seated stools.
The existing branded shed has been repurposed into a function centre that has a warm but practical interior with sliding doors that open onto a terrace overlooking the vines. The restaurant ‘Quarters’ is a divided servery and sectioned kitchen and restaurant, mirrored by different counters along the length of the building. A large pizza oven adorns one end, sculptured in copper coloured mosaic penny rounds, while a similar toned bar conceals the service area. Contrasting green subway tiles feature behind with white and green at the front, complemented by a timber-clad bar and servery section.
With plans underway to enhance the guest experience even further with the addition of a hotel and wellness centre, also designed by Cera Stribley, this project is the first stage of a holistic destination, set to reinvigorate the region’s world-class tourism and hospitality offering.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Domenic Cerantonio, Chris Stribley, Jessica Coulter, Danny Tong, Darcy Kay, Katherine McDonald
Project Brief
Established in 1862 by pioneering winemaker Hubert de Castella and re-born in 1966 following the Great Depression, St Hubert’s has long been considered one of the finest spots in the Yarra Valley for its portfolio of cool-climate wines. In 2019, Ryan Hospitality Group, led by Gerry and Andrew Ryan, in collaboration with Treasury Premium Brands, commissioned Cera Stribley to breathe new life into the St Hubert’s wine estate once more – this time, on a much grander scale than ever before.
Culminating in a family-style restaurant (Quarters), Indigenous art gallery (Hubert Gallery of Art), event space (Harriett), revamped St Hubert’s cellar door – all designed by Cera Stribley – as well as a boutique wine store (Notes), designed by Landini Associates, the new Hubert Estate is a significant investment in the Yarra Valley. With plans underway to enhance the guest experience even further with the addition of a hotel and wellness centre, also designed by Cera Stribley, this project is the first stage of a holistic destination, set to reinvigorate the region’s world-class tourism and hospitality offering by making architecture and design a key part of the attraction.
Project Innovation/Need
Many of the building materials and technical elements of this project have been customised in order to execute a building that is seamless and cohesive with its design intent.
The new volume that holds the cellar door, art gallery, and wine store has been purposefully designed to sit sculpturally amongst the landscape. To achieve this, an existing mound of the landscape was excavated and effectively reformed over the top of the new building, functionally serving as natural insulation. Execution required close collaboration with the project’s steel fabricators, as each element of the steelwork used along the brim of the cellar door facade has been customised to articulate the ‘eyelid’ shape of the undulating form.
Internally, key innovations involve the seamless integration of mechanical services. In the cellar door, the interior wall cavities have been expanded to form a corridor of concealed mechanical services, leaving no exposed fittings. Acoustic insulation is cleverly concealed in the ceiling, under a polished concrete look acoustic plaster finish to achieve a NRC rating of 0.8.
The restaurant and the function centre are housed in two repurposed shed volumes that were pre-existing on the site. Acoustic quality is embedded in the interior design response through highly-considered material application.
One side of the restaurant’s pitched ceiling has been clad in Autex groove pattern acoustic panels, colour-matched to sit seamlessly alongside the Intrim VJ Board lining the other side of the ceiling. Sculptform timber paneling with acoustic backing and integrated unifying services clads the function centre ceiling.
Design Challenge
The Yarra Valley has been hard-hit since the advent of COVID-19; the pandemic has decimated the regional hospitality and tourism industries the local community so heavily relies upon. Comprising a family-style restaurant (Quarters), Indigenous art gallery (Hubert Gallery of Art), event space (Harriett), revamped St Hubert’s cellar door – all designed by Cera Stribley – as well as a boutique wine store (Notes), designed by Landini Associates, the new Hubert Estate is a significant investment in the Yarra Valley that redefines the region’s hospitality offering. The design is visually impactful from the highway; an attraction that passers by will want to explore.
Hubert Estate represents a significant milestone project for Cera Stribley, marking the practice’s debut into hospitality design, as well as being our biggest project to date in terms of number of stakeholders involved and sheer scale. The fact that the project’s execution coincided with the advent of COVID-19 added further complexity to the challenge of design and delivery – we were well and truly in uncharted territory.
Like many large-scale projects executed over the course of the last couple of years, the project team had to mitigate numerous unforeseen challenges and delays along the way. Working in constant and close collaboration with all stakeholders and contributors was critical to success. Likewise, preferencing local suppliers and materials became central to the delivery strategy.
Sustainability
As with all Cera Stribley’s projects, sustainable principles are elegantly embedded throughout the design of Hubert Estate, manifesting in a variety of building qualities, with the site’s regional location serving as a key motivator behind many of the sustainable design decisions made along the way.
The decision to retain and restore the existing shed volumes, which have been repurposed to house Hubert Estate’s new restaurant and function centre, set the tone for a development that honours its inherited environment. This sentiment was upheld as the project progressed, through the use of locally-sourced materials from environmentally-responsible suppliers such as Eco Timber, Urban Salvage, Sculptform, Earp Bros, and Arranmore Furniture, among others. Much of the timber sourced was recycled, further contributing to the cause of creating a more sustainable built environment.
Concrete slab in a variety of terrazzo finishes was used as the base flooring material for each of the built volumes, in a deliberate effort to ensure the durability of the design while enhancing the thermal efficiency of each space. With floor to ceiling glazing articulating the east-facing elevations, each space is drenched in morning sunlight, while the concrete retains all this solar warmth, maintaining thermal comfort naturally all day, every day. The passive solar quality of the newly-built cellar door and art gallery is enhanced furthermore, by the architecture being quite literally buried within the landscape.
Lastly, Hubert Estate has been designed to be a semi self-sufficient building, leveraging the site’s existing dam for all draining and water treatment.
Architecture - Commercial - Constructed
This award celebrates the design process and product of planning, designing and constructing form, space and ambience that reflect functional, technical, social, and aesthetic considerations. Consideration given for material selection, technology, light and shadow.
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