I’ve been quiet for a while but I’m still around! I went off to Scotland with some childhood friends for a much needed break. I had a great time and we visited quite a few distilleries which was a great experience. One of the distilleries we visited was the Macallan distillery recently built by Richard Rogers’ office. (photo below from the RHSP website).

Maybe it’s because I’m constantly thinking of sustainability, architecture and related topics but I found the process of making whisky was highly related with sustainability and architecture in general.

One thing that shocked me was how every distillery we visited (and I’m not ashamed to say we visited quite a few) had different pot stills. These are used to distill the whisky and it is through this process that some of the flavors of the malt are carried into the whisky. So how much and what kind of flavors are carried up, is directly dependent on the shape of the swan neck and lyne arm. I had no idea!

Even more interesting, these things that are quite big, need to be replaced every 20-25 years, so the building has to be designed for this to happen without major distractions.

Nothing illustrates this better than a story we heard as they where changing one of these pot stills. Apparently, the one to be replaced was banged. In order to keep the whisky with the same taste when they set the new one in place they rang up someone to come and bang it up!

It was also interesting to, learn that apparently an estimate of 2% of all Scottish whisky is lost through evaporation.

This is referred to by the scottish as the “angels share” making for the worlds “happiest angels”.

Scotland had much more to offer of course. We visited many interesting castles and towns and I got to get a glimpse into a very interesting culture. Much to my disappointment however, I did not manage to see Nessy in spite of going to Loch Ness, so I’ll have to come back!

You’ll find architects who insist there’s no way of starting a project other than by hand. I even believe myself to be one of these architects. Nevertheless, this may be just a generational thing. Now with AI people are likely to start projects with an image and see how to get to that result. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that but the reality is the process always changes depending on the project. This is what I delve into in this video.

🎬 Shorts of the WeekJune was an important month as we celebrate throughout the whole month one architect. He’s the father of modern architecture and an inspiration to many (including myself).

Care to know who it is?

click on any of these short videos below.

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The first 4 episodes of the green ginger are available and I’ll keep them coming even throughout the summer break as I find these to be easily digestible important pieces of information. The only downside is that unfortunately nobody else seems to think so! 😜

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M.Arch. Pedro Augspach

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