WINE COUNTRY is an office space for the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance in Paso Robles, California.

An old 1980’s realty office building was converted into this winery alliance’s new membership, event, and administrative space. The proposed design takes advantage of a small square footage and turns it into a lovely, cozy gathering space for in between meetings and drinking a glass of wine after a long day of work.

By putting two concrete-poured planter boxes in the center of the space and attaching wood seating on the sides, you get micro gathering spaces in between the planter boxes with plants as a buffer. The existing pergola posts were used as points to align the planter boxes to. The seating was also intentionally placed so as not to extend outside of the pergola’s canopy for proper shade.

Four plant categories were chosen: tall grass, agave, shrub, and light blue ground cover. These four were sufficient to give the gardens diversity while still providing a cohesive design throughout all the small planter spaces. Vines were also placed on specific walls in order to provide contrast on the exterior’s empty walls and add greenery in corners that had a lot of shade due to the building’s long roof overhang.