Artisanal Distillery Integrates Island Rental Suites

“Vancouver-based architecture workshop RSAAW recently completed Copper Spirit Distillery, a purpose-built mixed-use sustainable building. Copper Spirit Distillery integrates an artisanal gin, vodka, and rye distillery with a tasting room and much needed residential rental units for islanders. This groundbreaking project is the first of its kind to combine industrial and residential use of this nature in Canada.

Located on Bowen Island, a municipality that is part of Metro Vancouver, the 8,815 square foot building integrates residential and industrial programs challenging both provincial code and local urban plan concepts. After numerous design iterations and a less traditional approach to the programmatic distribution, the building’s mass successfully evolved into two separate volumes connected by mechanical systems below grade and by a light-filled atrium above grade that link the public spaces of the building.

Visitors are welcomed through the minimalist tasting lounge with front patio and out into a light-filled double-height atrium where the twenty-eight-foot-high glazed ceiling showcases the German copper stills and the flow of the distilling process. The atrium’s glass floor provides a visual connection and allows daylighting into the concrete basement housing the distillery’s raw material storage, bottling equipment, and rainwater collection vessels.”