After ten years practicing in the firm’s original office, the number of staff (and stuff) had outgrown its humble beginnings and needed more space. Still committed to being in an upper floor space in the heart of downtown Springfield, the firm relocated to a second office location much different than the original, with a robust cast-in-place concrete structure and few windows. Built in the 1950s as a Woolworth’s department store, the 7,500 sf space had served as the warehouse for the retail operations at street level. Maximizing access to daylight became an immediate driver in the design, along with highlighting the firm’s penchant for the unexpected use of materials, and a studio environment reminiscent of architecture school.
The design solution maximizes the impact of two street-facing slot windows, one to the north and one to the east overlooking historic Park Central Square. The cast-in-place structure is left exposed with the insertion of three objects that layer the floor plate from public to private, allowing all spaces to share daylight across the room. The result is a direct view to the outside from virtually every square foot of the office.
Upon exiting the elevator, visitors are immediately greeted by a view to the north through a glass conference room and street-facing slot window. A reception desk is clad in hot-rolled steel plate puzzle pieces with crisp butt joints and countersunk fasteners. Likewise, a companion steel wall shields the office workroom. Behind the two steel screens rests a single box containing three offices and a small conference room. This box is clad with 885 vertical strips of drywall corner bead attached to OSB painted orange. The result is a mysterious texture, blurry edges, and the occasional sound of someone dragging a pen across the vertical fins. Custom workstations flank a central spine of high-top tables to support everything from impromptu collaborations to potluck Thanksgiving meals. Storage and mechanical units are hidden behind a long wall of custom sliding panels made from solid core wood doors from the local big box lumber yard strapped together and disguised with a skin of gray and orange industrial felt. Felt seams are sewn together and accentuated by butting surfaces and turning them outward to form a ridge, a nod to the history of the building as a department store. The felt, combined with a wall of tackable Homasote on the opposite side of the studio, provide acoustic absorption for the lively studio environment. Existing roof penetrations left behind from the removal of old mechanical equipment are capped with prefab skylights for some bonus daylight. The ceiling is kept clean by exposing the concrete slab deck and painting it white to reflect indirect lighting mounted to the bottom of the concrete beams.
