Europe’s first ‘wine tower’ forms the centrepiece of the 500-room Radisson SAS hotel at Stansted Airport. This spectacular 13 metre high glass wine rack – complete with trapezing 'wine angels' – is fully temperature controlled and can hold up to 4,000 bottles of wine. Hotel guests select the wine of their choice and watch as the 'angels' glide up and down the tower using computer-controlled winches, performing acrobatics on the way.

Buro Happold provided structural and building services engineering consultancy on this highly acclaimed project. Over 6.5 tons of toughened laminated glass was used in the construction of the massive glass case, which houses a specially designed clear acrylic rack system. The glazed outer panels are built around a rigid steel core and the tower is capped by a pyramid-shaped acrylic roof.

The objective of the design was to build a practical structure for storing wine while at the same time creating an electrifying piece of theatre. A bespoke environmental conditioning and control system was developed to allow the wines to be kept at the ideal temperatures – around 15˚C for red, 8˚C for white. Holes in the rear of the five prefabricated ‘modules’ that comprise the tower draw in either cold air from a central cooling coil or warm air from the surrounding atrium.