Boulderspace

Looking at the next project from the Architect Challenge at Design Project Build, Mark and Stacey put their creative energy into the transformation of Lolita’s Market, located at 800 Pearl Street.

Team: Mark Gerwing, M.Gerwing Architects and Stacey Root, Boulder Associates
Project: Lolita’s Redesign

Our overall approach to the project, like all renovations, was to analyze the existing old buildings and try to see what elements can not only be retained, but by their presence and their history, be transformed to be the core of the ideas for the new construction. Every building is not only the sum of its bricks, metal and glass, but represents the synthesis of the history of a site and a new vision for the future. Like an archaeologist, we dig around in the site and existing building to see what the order of the place is and how that can utilized and transformed for the new construction.

We started this project by reading through the Landmarks Board’s documents regarding the property. We were particularly taken by the changes to the various buildings that have been on the site over the last 100 years. Each building has had two things in common – a wide, simple gable form facing Pearl Street and heavy masonry walls. The other item that struck us was that there was a curving railroad siding that slides in alongside the building from the south.

In our initial approach we decided to abide by the Landmark Board’s determination to keep the gabled front, the long façade along 8th Street and 50% of the roof. Instead of stepping away from the existing building and treating it like a sacred fetish, we decided that any new buildings on the site would fully engage the existing building. The existing building’s heavy timber trusses established a rhythm of elements that reinforced a progression into the site in both the new and old buildings. We wanted to keep Lolitas as a neighborhood market but to also transform that market from a simple convenience store into a small farmers market and café. The market then becomes more of a covered souk, placing glass roofing panels on the existing heavy timbers and making a series of new openings along the west facing masonry wall. This openness along the west side and corner of the site addresses the corner condition of the building. This then influenced how we envisioned the bulk of the new construction on the site. Using the echo of the old curving railroad siding as an inspiration, the new residential units are bracketed by a curving masonry wall that cuts through the old building and the new constructed residential building to the east.

Design Project Build - Project Descriptions:
DPB: Whole Foods Redesign - Harvey Hine and Lars Zimmerman

Tags: 800 Pearl Street, Boulder Associates, Design Project Build, Lolita's Redesign, M. Gerwing Architects, Mark Gerwing