VINE ARCHITECTURE: A Climatic and Spatial Language of Terroir at Latitude 30°N and 50°N

Abstract

Terroir, derived from the Latin terra, traditionally describes how fixed land shapes the identity of wine. Driven by global warming, the migration of vineyards toward higher latitudes provides a vivid spatial expression of climate change, severing the bond between vines and land. This thesis positions this agricultural disruption as a catalyst for landscape architecture to reclaim its historical capacity: synthesizing production, ecology, culture, and spatial experience into a single act of design. Sited at the contrasting boundaries of the shifting global wine belt, this project pairs a warming Temecula Valley (30°N) with an emerging Cowichan Valley (50°N) to examine how terroir is transformed over time. Reading the agricultural landscape simultaneously as a system, an artifact, a living being, and a human experience, the project abstracts traditional vine training systems into landscape infrastructure. Millennia of local climate intelligence and labor are decoded as an architectural alphabet: plant trunks become columns and walls, while vegetative canopies form protective facades. By positioning humans within the ecological niche of the grape, the vineyard is reconfigured from a monolithic agricultural tract into a habitable, human-scale sanctuary. Rather than fixing a static moment, the design gives form to environmental processes, making climate-driven transformation inherently inhabitable. Ultimately, this adaptive design language expands terroir beyond a gustatory experience into a multi-dimensional human experience. By reassembling vernacular vine architectures across latitudes, the thesis demonstrates how terroir—as a dynamic, structural landscape system—can preserve cultural memory, institutionalize ecological intelligence, and allow productive lands to continue to speak amidst climate change.