Okra – Sweetdram Tasting Room

Sweetdram Tasting Room

Location:	Edinburgh, Scotland
Type:	Events Space
Client:	Sweetdram Distillery
Collaborators:	Vangeli Moschopoulos
Duration:	2018-2019
Status:	Completed
Photographs:	Vangeli Moschopoulos, Murray Orr

We were commissioned to design a temporary structure within the Sweetdram Distillery that would function as a tasting room for the spirits produced on site and as a showcase for the brand. Positioned as the first structure that visitors interact with upon entering the space, we identified the need for something striking and simultaneously coherent to Sweetdram’s brand identity. The brief required the tasting room to operate in a flexible manner, allowing the team to use it as a sampling point for small groups or as a bar to service larger events.

The tasting room exists as an ‘island’ within the distillery warehouse: a social ‘space within a space’; simultaneously enclosed and yet open to the activity of the distillery. Built as a timber framed box, it opens on 3 sides to meet the need for flexibility, providing intimacy, as well as the opportunity to expand into the warehouse for larger events.

Sweetdram’s budget was modest, so material selection, direct and considered detailing and simplicity of design were vital to reduce construction time and cost. The modular nature of the exposed timber structure creates a regular rhythm, emphasised by translucent polycarbonate panels especially when illuminated at night.