Glenfiddich Distillery Expansions
William Grant & Sons are currently undertaking an expansion of the Glenfiddich Distillery. The expansion includes the construction of a new stillhouse, tun room and the conversion of the existing stillhouse to increase capacity to meet long term demand.
Location: Dufftown
Client: William Grant & Sons
Cost: Confidential
Completion: Under Construction
The design of the new stillhouse was to be constructed to be architecturally sympathetic with existing distillery buildings and to minimise the visual impact upon the historic Balvenie Castle.
The construction of the stillhouse was to be traditional in appearance utilising stone from nearby quarries.
The project necessitated a considerable amount of engineering with construction of a new services culvert below the Keith to Dufftown rail line and a considerable amount of re-development of the existing site, including demolition of an existing warehouse and diversion of numerous services that traversed the site.
The Architects for the project were Norr and Blyth & Blyth were appointed as Principal Designer, Civil and Structural designer and Building Services designer.
Key challenges
Of key importance to the client was that existing production was not to be impacted upon during construction and the client requested that all process services be incorporated within culverts and underground structures to avoid the visual impact upon the new stillhouse and existing buildings.
The project has approximately 150m of underground culverts connecting the stillhouse, tun room and tank farm, these were generally constructed from in-situ concrete and allow access for maintenance operatives under control.
The existence of groundwater at high level required a ground water management system to be incorporated in advance of bulk excavation works to ensure that safe working conditions were maintained during bulk excavation works and to ensure that existing water courses were protected from uncontrolled discharges
Results
The project has created a cathedral like stillhouse which allows the distillery to achieve its long term production goals whilst maintaining the distilling traditions that have existed on the site since 1887. Works are currently ongoing with anticipated completion during Q4 2019.