Austin, Texas
Program: A single-story, 30,000-square-foot headquarters for the Livestrong Foundation, with office space, meeting rooms, a courtyard, a gym, and a resource center for cancer patients. Located in East Austin, the facility is an adaptive reuse of a concrete tilt-up paper warehouse built in the 1950s.
Design concept and solution: Charged with designing an open-plan office for the foundation, the architects needed to convert what was essentially a big, uninsulated storage box into a workspace for people. They also faced the challenge of bringing daylight into the space, since lot-line and other restrictions prevented windows from being added to all but one side of the building. On the north end of the structure, Lake | Flato removed the middle portion of the exterior wall. To give the once-stark warehouse an inviting street presence, the firm added a landscaped entry court with a steel canopy, which overhangs a new glazed entrance recessed from the building edge. To bring northern light further into the building, the architects opened up a central section of the roof and inserted sawtooth clerestory windows. They remilled the leftover roof decking and, in homage to the building's former life, turned it into wood-plank office enclosures reminiscent of shipping crates. The crates—wood on three sides, glass on the front—are scattered in an ad-hoc arc around the entire office. The arc defines a circulation path through the space, like a main street stitching together the houses of a village.
Completion Date: March 2009
Owner:
Livestrong Foundation
People
Owner:
Architect:
Personnel in architect's firm who should receive special credit: Interior designer: Bommarito Group Engineer(s): Architectural Engineering (Structural), Baker-Aiklen & Assoc (Civil)
Consultant(s) General contractor: Spaw-Maxwell
Photographer(s): Frank Ooms
Hester + Hardaway Photographers Renderer(s): Lake | Flato Architects CAD system, project management, or other software used: Revit |
ProductsExterior cladding
Metal/glass curtainwall: Clark Steel Framing Systems
Metal: Galvanized Metal and TPO Wood: Site Salvaged Glazing
Glass: SunGuard by Guardian Locksets: Stanley Interior finishes
Demountable partitions: Metal Mesh by The Western Group
Office furniture: Knoll Autostrada Controls: Lutron Systems Plumbinginclude water fountains and water-saving fixtures as applicable: The Garten |
