Crafting a spiritual home for Emerson’s

Emerson’s new brewery is designed to be a place for people to taste, touch, smell, celebrate and discover Emerson’s uniquely Kiwi brand.

New Zealanders love craft beer. To celebrate this love, Lion wanted to create a brand new ‘spiritual home’ for its iconic craft brewery – Emerson’s Brewery in Dunedin. Designed to be a haven for beer lovers, it includes a new brewery, cellar door, warehouse, offices, site tours, and a bar and restaurant which perfectly matches great beer with great food.

What makes this project unique is the combination of an industrial project with some serious architectural flair. The new brewery needed to create the feeling of the Emerson’s brand. Because of how important the brewing process is to Emerson’s, the working brewing vessels are a key design feature. They’re now highly visible, both from the street and the restaurant.

The new brewery has an expanded production capacity, meaning it can meet the increasing demand for Emerson’s high quality, award-winning beers. It includes both new and relocated equipment from the existing brewery.

We provided project management, architecture, engineering, consenting and construction management to bring the Emerson’s brand to life. We brought together a locally-based core team in Dunedin to manage the construction and project managed it from Auckland to maintain regular communication with Lion.

Awards:

• Commendation Award for Lighting Design, 2016 Illuminating Engineering Society of Australia and New Zealand Lighting Awards
• Property Council Awards 2017 - YARDI Industrial Property Award - Merit
• Designers Institute of New Zealand Best Design Award 2017 - Spatial Category

Photography by Graham Warman