On the ground floor of the building, a long circulation corridor extends front-to-back, drawing visitors inward to a dramatic three-story atrium lobby at the center of the building, which provides access to the upstairs, an art gallery, and an indoor/outdoor gathering space at the back.
“Design-wise the lobby is very democratic—anyone can see it and access it,” says Pierson.
Also three stories high, the circulation spine brings light and views inside with floor-to-ceiling glazed volumes, revealing the rough underpinnings of the original structure.
The building was substantially gutted and renovated, but the main masonry structural shell, “once covered up for a century” says Pierson, remains intact.
Much of the original wood was removed and corn-blasted (pulverized corn was put into sand-blasting equipment and the joists were pummeled).
“The corn blasting was as effective as sand blasting and the look was better,” commented Peters. Holland was amazed at the rustic joists and joked that “George Washington was around when that tree started growing.”
The architects juxtaposed the old with a new modern core such that “the contemporary nature of the interventions is revealed as a procession,” explains Mercier. This journey through time is completed with clerestory windows at the top, “becoming the opposite of the historic facade at the front,” he continues. Bifurcating the existing roof into two planes sloped in opposing directions created a scissor-shape. “The existing roof slopes down and the new roof sloping up creates a new rear facade curtain wall that cascades down to a green roof,” says Mercier.