Guanqiu Huang

Pilsen is a city in central Europe famous for its beer brewing. During an industrial manufacturing period stretching back hundreds of years, the craft of huge, hand-made wooden beer barrels flourished in parallel with the growth of the beer brewing industry. However, as modern industrial brewing techniques became more widespread, these huge wooden barrels were gradually replaced by metal containers for storing beer. Today, there are only a few of these highly skilled barrel makers working to maintain this heritage, in a small workshop, adjacent to the brewery and close to the city center.



The thesis establishes a new academy to perpetuate the barrel craft-making heritage in Pilsen, as a way of balancing modern craft techniques with traditional heritage practices in the city.



On an urban scale, the site is located adjacent to, and within, the existing workshops, establishing a new destination along the river edge, that re-establishes a dialogue with the city. The architectural language of the project is that of barrel staves reimagined as a series of roofs that come to rest on the original building, creating a structural balance and making a cover for free-form pavilion spaces beneath. The project balances the increasing energy consumption of the industry with sustainability by attempting to make use of the energy generated from the purified wastewater that is discharged across the site into the river.