San Antonio architecture firm Clayton Korte has nestled a wine cellar into the rolling hills of Texas, tucked away in a limestone cave so it disappears into the surrounding landscape.
The cave is located in close proximity to the owner's ranch, in the rugged countryside around Austin.
The cave is embedded into a limestone hillside in Texas
The wine cellar includes a tasting room, bar and restroom, as well as a collection of 4,000 bottles stored at an optimal temperature thanks to the colder, subterranean climate.
When local practice Clayton Korte, formerly Clayton & Little, came on to the project, the owners had already excavated a tunnel into the hillside, measuring 18 feet (five metres) tall and 70 feet (21 metres) deep.
Within this opening, the firm inserted a wooden module like a "ship in a bottle", to create an interior that is both waterproof and human-scale. Clayton Korte formed an entrance portal from board-formed concrete
"We started with a 3D scan of the existing excavation using our Matterport Pro2 camera and three-dimensionally mapping all of the irregularities of the existing cave," Clayton Korte principal Brian Korte told Dezeen.
"By carefully manipulating the solids and voids of the wooden box insert, the cave could be concealed and revealed to the occupant, leveraging the good qualities of subterranean construction while protecting from unwanted moisture and darkness."

The entrance is capped with a board-formed concrete po...