RESEARCH OF DIMENSIONING CRITERIA FOR FARM WINERY DESIGN: ANALYSIS OF SPATIAL LAYOUTS IN A STUDY AREA

Farm wineries should be designed to meet manifold specific building requirements, related to the peculiar features of a production sector which plays a fundamental role within the European agriculture. The goal of the study is the analysis of the built environment of farm wineries, with particular reference to those characterized by small-to-medium production sizes, which prove strategic in Italy, as we showed in previous studies. The specific aim is the research of significant correlations between the dimensional features of their main built spaces and production capacities, in a context characterized by broad product diversification and high process flexibility. As it is well known, these relations also depend on factors such as urban planning policies, economic aspects, site dimensions and morphologic conditions. The research refers to a 800 km2 study area in the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy), with heterogeneous geographic, agricultural and settlement features. We identified 131 farm wineries, with annual average production capacities up to 5000 hl/year. They have been georeferenced through a GIS, which also allowed to classify them based on suitable production capacity classes and altimetric zones. These variables allowed us to identify a representative sample of farm wineries, based on a stratified random sampling technique. The built system of the sampled farms has been studied by means of desk and field analyses. On field detailed metric surveys have been supported by available technical and design documentation, and allowed us to elaborate 3D digital representations of each farmstead. Each building has been decomposed in base units, classified based on the main spatial units defined in previous studies. For each spatial unit we have surveyed the floor area, average internal height, and volume, and have computed the average and the coefficient of variation of these parameters, and the Bravais-Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient (r) between each of them and the annual production capacity of the winery. The results have underlined, on the one hand, that the sizes of the built spaces not directly linked to grape processing (such as storage of additives and adjuvants, tasting room, dressing room) are substantially independent of the production capacity. On the other hand, floor area, height and volume of the grape receipt and wine-making spatial units, as well as volume of those for bottling, bottles storage and aging, showed significant correlations. In these cases, we have calculated the parameters of a linear regression model in order to identify the relationship between those variables and the average annual production capacity. The results can contribute to investigate the critical aspects of existing wineries and to define design indications, based on the joint consideration of the analysis of the existing conditions and a theoretical approach to the definition of dimensional standards.