Alfama Gin Distillery

This site specific project aims to explore a nuance in the way the Portuguese indulge| Quietly Resting on an angular platform behind the Church of São Vicente, in the heart of the Lisbon Alfama. A mirador is created. A proposal for a social experience and creative space for the sale, consumption, cultivation and in essence; an exposition of a uniquely Portuguese gin.

Gin is an alcoholic drink made fundamentally by the distillation of both dried and fresh juniper berries; but the essential character of the spirit comes from the selection of botanical ingredients which are intricately infused to give the liquor its unique taste.

Lisbon has a fresh gin scene emerging and the city happens to possess its own unique tolerance for the consumption of alcohol. With a removed stigma surrounding societal taboos about the way alcohol is consumed, you can find a drink anywhere in Lisbon in the most unassuming hole in the wall or often in the most banal of spaces.

Hidden behind the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora proposed is a novo-urban Iberian landscape; planted within a native Portuguese botanical garden, one which generates an urban pedestal a jardim representing the diversities of the iberian landscape in flavour and aroma; a place sacred to the Alfama Gin Distillery, within and around where it rests. This botanical garden grows the key ingredients which are harvested, procured, and through a precess of distillation; their essence is extracted to flavour the gin and produce a distillation of both Portuguese botany and culture.

Two characters are imagined living on site. A master distiller a character who himself is responsible for curating the balance of flavours in the liquor.
And a master botanist, who tends to the garden. Together they are in control of the two fundamental aspects of the project; the gin and the Portuguese botany.

Pavilions which blur themselves between the indoor and outdoor environment test the publicity and privacy of consumption and creation, whilst also stretching our expectation for a sterilised indoor environment both during the dining and distillation process. The elevated site houses a distillery, bar, apartments and gin lounge where there is an opportunity for individuals to experience the drink through a dialogue between themselves and the master distiller. 

The Alfama Gin Distillery doesn’t only physically perform to extract the essences of a Portuguese landscape, but through a metaphoric nod to the botanical organisms on site, the project physically grows into the old city and distils the characteristics and cultures of alcohol consumption in Lisbon.