2026 | Student

MUSE Design Awards Silver Winner

ANGEL'S SHARE

Entrant

University of Pennsylvania

Category

Architectural Design - Commercial Building

Client's Name

-

Country / Region

United States

About The Entry

Angel’s Share is a distillery in Scotland that explores how architecture can heighten perception through the relationship between landscape, production, and human experience. Inspired by the sublime quality of Scotland’s mountainous terrain, the project transforms the whisky-making process into an immersive architectural journey.The design began with sculptural studies based on tetrahedral geometries. Their faceted, geological character echoes the surrounding landscape and establishes the formal language of the building. Rather than treating this geometry as purely expressive, the project integrates form, structure, and program, allowing the architecture to respond directly to the technical requirements of distillation.

The complete production process - from milling and mashing to distillation, storage, and aging - is organized as a layered three-dimensional sequence. Instead of following a conventional linear route, visitors move through and around the production spaces, gaining simultaneous views into different stages of whisky-making. Production becomes part of the visitor experience rather than a process concealed behind it.Materiality reinforces the contrast between industrial precision and sensory experience. Warm CLT is paired with heavy marble, creating deliberate shifts in weight, temperature, texture, and atmosphere. These transitions heighten spatial awareness while establishing a dialogue between the natural qualities of timber and the monumental character of stone.

The sculptural geometry is also closely tied to performance. A tall vertical element functions as a heat-exhaust chimney for the distillation process while becoming a visible marker in the landscape. Other formal moves similarly respond to technical requirements without separating function from expression.Throughout the building, controlled and technical production spaces are balanced by warmer, more luminous public areas. The tasting room and visitor spaces provide moments of intimacy and pause within the larger, more dramatic architectural sequence.

Angel’s Share ultimately brings production, hospitality, sculpture, and landscape into a single experience. Through geometry, material, circulation, and atmosphere, the project reimagines the distillery as both a place of making and a place of discovery.

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