Project of the week

WHAT: A winery in the wilds of South America, where QSing is a little-known discipline. The building has a cutting edge design nonetheless, spanning five levels, three of which are underground. It is being used to make a Chillean wine called Clos Apalta.

WHERE: Colchagua Valley, in the foothills of the Andes.

WHO: The client is the family that makes Grand Marnier, the French Marnier Lapostolle dynasty. They founded Casa Lapostolle in 1994 to make French wines in the South American soil.

HOW MUCH: $7.5m (£4.29m) for the winery and equipment.

HOW: The building is one of few wineries in the world to incorporate five levels, according to the client. Three floors are embedded deep in the granite bedrock of the Andean foothills. The design uses gravity to allow the wine to flow downwards naturally through each stage of the winemaking process. This eliminates the need to move the liquid by pumping, which is thought to damage the wine's flavour.

WHAT SIZE: 3,800m2

WHEN: The winery opened last month and took four years to design and build.

CONTRACT: Chilean standard. The gross work was under a fixed total amount defined before starting work The finishing was under an administration contract (actual cost plus administration cost plus margin). Administration cost and margin were set and fixed in advance.

WHO: Technical surveyor: Empresa de Ingeniería Ramón Goldsack y Asociados (Ramón Asociados for short, presumably), contractor: Constructora GHG, architect: Amercanda

CLIENT'S VIEW (WITH SOME PHILOSOPHY): "All of the people I have wanted to work with live by the philosophy of humanity and understand the importance of nature in out lives. (The project team) all share with me and my husband this passion for excellence and this motto: ‘It may be difficult but it is not impossible.'" - Alexadra Lapostolle, president, Casa Lapostolle