Cada Cuba Huele al Vino que Tiene (Every Cask Smells of the Wine it Contains) is the winning entry out of 52 international entries of the installation design competition for the architecture and design festival of Logroño, held in May earlier this year. Conceptualised by a six-person team, it is a devotional space dedicated to Rioja wine. Its architecture is a pure distillation of the region – specifically, its soil, climate, grapes and wine-making traditions; and was conceived in response to the competition’s call for an intervention within the historic Plaza del Revellin.

Made out of 20 sheets of 1.5m by 2.5m poplar plywood, a competition requirement, the intervention was designed as deconstructed wine barrels. Inhabiting its exhibition space, the installation comprises seven ‘Cooper’s cabins’. Varying in size, each symbolised towns within the Rioja region. The largest three represented Haro, Calahora and Logroño, and the compact ones for smaller towns. Pushing its cultural identity and reference, the interior of each cabin is stained with wine. Their colours, too, vary according to the wine of the area they represent.

Each is a temple to the wine, the land and the communities they epitomise. Bowing respectfully as one breaches the interior, a wine-heavy air and a ceremonial light glowing wine red envelops the space. Come nightfall, the whole of Revellin Plaza takes on a reverential glow as Tempranillo lights shine out from within the large cabins and long interconnected shadows intersect the space to create an interesting diversity for all traversing the installation. The result is a heady environment which moves beyond the purely visceral into a fully immersive sensory space that effectively generated new paths and provoked a unique relationship between the pedestrian and the square, making them a participant.