21st Amendment Brewery
Architect: Aidlin Darling Design
Location: San Leandro, CA
Client: 21st Amendment Brewery
Completion: 2015

After relocating production to Cold Spring, Minnesota, from San Francisco eight years ago, the rapidly growing craft brewers, 21st Amendment Brewery, is moving production back to the Bay Area. This time they’re heading to San Leandro, a suburb that’s also home to headquarters for the North Face and Ghirardelli Chocolates.

Aidlin Darling Design is directing the scheme for the new 95,000-square-foot brewery, which will repurpose a former Kellogg’s Cereal factory. A major goal is to bring green space into the building and bring the industrial character out into the landscape, to “create a seamless outdoor-indoor relationship,” said founding partner David Darling. In the firm’s proposal, an allée of trees makes its way into the cellar to help break down the scale of the building, and the facility includes a beer garden with hangar doors. Inside the two-story brew house is an interactive space for tours via a path that floats above the production area. Viewing platforms, tasting areas, and places for refuge are also included.

“We want to instill a sense of adventure, discovery, and also education,” explained Darling. Found objects help tell the story of the brewing process, such as a hot kiln. The facility will support brewing, grain handling, milling, a canning line, a restaurant, a packaging hall, event spaces, and meeting rooms. “It’s like master-planning a city, with macro and micro relationships,” said Darling.

The firm is re-skinning the building with metal scrim paneling, which is lifted off the ground. Operable windows and skylights bring in natural light and provide ventilation for the brewing machinery. The LEED Gold project will be built in three phases. The first is scheduled to open this fall, with completion expected in 2015.