WESTLAND RACKHOUSES

Three modern concrete rackhouses with bright red doors and large red lettering under a twilight sky.

Modern concrete rackhouse with a bright red door, set in a dry grassy field with distant mountains.

Modern concrete rackhouse with red sliding doors, wood-lined roof, and a view of the barrel storage inside.

Rows of wooden whiskey barrels stacked in a rustic rackhouse with exposed timber trusses and an open doorway.

Rows of wooden barrels stacked in a spacious rackhouse with exposed timber ceilings and steel trusses.

Wooden aging barrels stacked in a distillery warehouse with exposed timber ceilings and steel trusses.

Wooden barrels stacked in a spacious distillery rackhouse with an exposed timber and steel truss ceiling.

Three modern white rackhouses with bright red doors in a dry field under a blue sky with distant mountains.

Three concrete rackhouses with red doors in a misty valley landscape, with three people standing outside.

Client

Skagit Valley

Burlington, Washington

Size

12,800 SF (x3)

Timeframe

2017 – 2022

Services Provided

Project Management

Site Planning & Entitlements

Architecture

General Contractor

Associated Earth Sciences, Inc.

MEP Engineer

You can’t make a whiskey that embodies the Pacific Northwest terroir in a climate-controlled metal warehouse. That’s why Westland’s new barrel aging rackhouses, each housing upwards of 4,000 barrels, are unconditioned and passively ventilated – inviting the Skagit Valley air, climate, and temperature to leave their signatures on the whisky aging within. Thermal mass from the building’s tilt-up concrete walls tempers the peaks & valleys of daily temperature swings, just like rackhouses throughout Scotland have done for centuries.

Entries at each end genuflect beneath roof overhangs to protect workers while loading and unloading barrels, and to show respect to the whisky passing across the threshold. And the complex’s stormwater is managed with a series of Underground Injection Control (UIC) wells, engineered by Jacobson Engineering and Associated Earth Sciences, to safely reintroduce runoff to the aquifer beneath, without degrading precious Skagit Valley topsoils.

An additional eight rackhouses will be built over the next two to three decades as distillery production grows. Portions of the property are also being used for sustainable agriculture research and organic barley farming.

”Like many of the relationships we’ve built at Westland, we see a partner rather than a vendor in our architect Mark Ward. Mark’s been close to our business for longer than any of the farmers, coopers, and maltsters we partner with. He and the firm he helms here in Seattle, Upward Architecture, have been alongside us during nearly every stage of cardinal significance.

To be valuable beyond simply designing buildings, Mark has immersed himself in the world of whiskey over the past 10 years, just like the rest of us. He’s developed a context, a feel, for how we can be successful in an increasingly competitive market then apply his unique skillset in the collective realization of that.

He’s been a voice of imagination, vision, and reason when called for. We wouldn’t be where we are as a distillery without the partnership of Mark along the way. The home he’s built us is just as much his home too. As will be the next one.
Steve HawleyMarketing Director

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CONTACT

TELEPHONE
(206) 400-7303
ADDRESS
1012 Western Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
EMAIL
hello@upwardarchitecture.com