The design for an urban sparkling winery in Charlottesville, Virginia, is the focus of this thesis project. While Virginia has nearly 230 wineries, earning it a fifth-place ranking in the U.S. as a wine-producing state, only 15 of those wineries currently produce sparkling wines. However, the potential for great sparkling wine from the Commonwealth clearly exists, and in the last eight years the quality of some Virginia sparklers has begun to receive national attention.

In addition to a sparkling winery, the project also includes an urban agriculture center, a farm-to-table restaurant, a small urban farm, and a new city market in a two-block development called the Market District.  This new Market District offers a unique destination for visitors to experience agriculture in the city as they learn about the culture of sparkling winemaking and the cultivation of agriculture, and how these things sustain our environment, our economy, and our lives.