River Architects has completed the newly constructed Seminary Hill Cidery located in Callicoon, NY. The 9,300 SF facility overlooks the Upper Delaware River Valley and the former Saint Joseph’s Seraphic Seminary from which it takes its name. Recently certified under PHIUS+ 2018, the building is comprised of a lower-level cider production facility and storage area and an upper-level tap room and event space with a commercial kitchen. It is the first certified fermented beverage production space in the world! The project’s unique program requirements, which included the production facility within the thermal envelope, make it the first of its kind to achieve PHIUS certification in the commercial sector and we learned many lessons from the design and construction process. We will review the challenges faced during construction and the lessons learned, the nuances of creating two conditioned zones with different operating temperatures and managing excess CO2 generation from fermentation in an air-tight building. Given the sloped site, the building is a modern take on a classic bank barn providing on-grade access to both levels. Building into the grade enabled us to benefit from the more constant ground temperature, and the cooler temperature required for fermentation and apple storage allowed us to eliminate the need for insulation at the basement floor slab and reduce the R-value of the basement wall system. The benefit of moving from a high R-value wall to something simpler lead to significant cost savings and simplified the wall assembly- moving from ICF to an assembly of cast-in-place concrete walls that utilized an expanded glass aggregate and minimal exterior insulation. The complexity of two different thermal zones and the unique challenges of fermentation within a tight envelope and energy consuming equipment created many interesting problems to solve through rigorous energy model studies and teamwork. We’re excited to share our journey of finding the balance in this unique project.