In Charlotte, N.C.'s burgeoning North End Smart District, Camp North End has been a Ford Motor Co. assembly plant, a site for the U.S. Army, and a Rite Aid distribution center. Up next for the 1-million-square-foot property is the city's largest-ever adaptive reuse project. Owned by the New York–based developer ATCO Properties & Management, the forthcoming mixed-use development will combine office, residential, and hospitality spaces with a retail corridor along the site's southeast side. For the retail corridor's Keswick Platform, a space that will contain seven pavilions for local businesses, ATCO wanted inventive façade ideas. In November, it launched a design competition for "young, up-and-coming Black architects in the Charlotte region," including architecture students, designers working in the profession, and solo practitioners, according to a ATCO press release.
After receiving 24 portfolio submissions, jurors from S9 Architecture in New York, BB+M Architecture in Charlotte, and ATCO Properties shortlisted 10 entrants in December. Each finalist received $1,000 and a request for proposal to design a pavilion in the Keswick Platform. After a final review process in January, the jury announced four winners: Hasheem Halim, Aleah Pullen, Melanie Reddrick, AIA, and Marcus R. Thomas, AIA. Each winner will receive an additional $2,000 for their final pavilion design. ARCHITECT spoke with each of the winners to learn more about their design proposals and process.
Melanie Reddrick, AIA
Project architect, Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, Charlotte, N.C.
Reddrick's design stemmed from her multiyear research in the area's history. As a resident of a nearby mixed-income neighborhood, Reddrick took the competition as an opportunity to "dig deeper" and pay homage to area street names that have been "lost to history," she says. "Those street names still live in the collective memory of many, but many of those who do remember no longer live in the area, which is rapidly gentrifying."
Reddrick's pavilion façade mimics the maps over which she has pored, with a number of 6-inch and 3-inch metal channels cutting into corrugated metal panels in the same way that "roads cut through the landscape." Cutouts in the paneling reveal sections of plywood substrate, on which historical street names are written. The wood underlayment not only references the materiality of the former street sign, but also is "symbolic of doing an excavation that uncovers a little bit of history," she says.
Reddrick hopes her pavilion design will spark the curiosity of passersby and inspire their own research into local history. "There are several street names that are currently being changed in Charlotte because of their Confederate ties, and monuments to the Confederacy are being torn down all across the country," she says. "It’s an erasure of a past that we would like to forget—those names no longer reflect who we are. In a small way, this design seeks to commemorate a small piece of the collective memory of the area, before we forget. Lest we forget."
Hasheem Halim
General Manager, Saturn Atelier, Charlotte, N.C.
Halim drew inspiration from Camp North End's adaptive reuse and history as a rail line stop. Using reclaimed railroad tiles for his pavilion entrance as a "datum line for the elevations," Halim also wanted to honor the original site's Classical design and the intricate brickwork used in Camp North End's original structures.
The resulting façade mixes the reclaimed materials with tiles made from recycled plastic, visually lightening the heavy masonry and creating a "crisp" material transition, Halim says. The polished, translucent, and brightly colored tiles are laid out in a chevron pattern, which creates a canvas for LED lighting that displays the tenant's brand.
"Using the plastic paying homage to a material that pre-dates it, with a pattern that pre-dates it, with new fabrication processes speaks to a hope that we can raise the experience of North Charlotte not by supplanting it, but by giving it another chance," Halim says. "The goal is for the design to enliven creativity. Seeing the beautiful way in which the plastic tile can [create] a marbling pattern ... can invite a conversation as to what 'trash' really is."
Aleah Pullen
Architectural Designer, Apogee Consulting Group, Charlotte, N.C.
Pullen began her design process with a visit to Camp North End where she noted salsa dancing near the food halls and a choir practice near a loading dock covered with murals—a collision of "art and industry," Pullen says. "This inspired my pavilion [façade design] to call back to the industrial past while allowing the façade to be just as colorful and vibrant as the surrounding atmosphere."
Pullen's proposed façade comprises metal cladding, reclaimed brick, and storefront windows to attract pedestrians and allow light inside the pavilion. A system of painted aluminum mullions segments the glazing and transitions into benches, mirroring the structural truss above the pavilion. Tenants can customize the color of the metal cladding and aluminum mullions, creating a brand-specific space.
"For the community, I hope this can become the new go-to spot or a nice place to hang around," Pullen says. "Camp North End is like an industrial art exhibit; this pavilion is my work on display."
Marcus R. Thomas, AIA
Managing Principal, KEi Architects, Charlotte, N.C.
Thomas aimed to design a pavilion that complements Camp North End's existing architecture while highlighting a piece of Black history. Working with a pavilion that frames a view of uptown Charlotte, Thomas focused on the changing city skyline, highlighting landmarks that, although important to the local Black community, have been erased over time. He says he wondered, "What if the pavilion was able to tell the story of erasure in Uptown Charlotte, while at the same time viewing the physical results in the skyline?"
Thomas encoded this story into his façade design, laser-cutting a map of the existing Uptown footprint into reclaimed metal paneling. LED back lights superimpose the lost landmarks where they once stood on the map. The rest of the façade recalls the design of traditional African huts, structures often insulated with straw and mud. Reclaimed wood cladding and 2-inch wooden slats mimic the hut texture and cover the pavilion's façade, extending to form a canopy. Fiber-optic string lights woven through the canopy suggest a starry sky.
"My hope is that [the design] is used as a conversation starter," Thomas says. "Affordable housing, access, and other socioeconomic inequities—design can help fix a lot of that. My hope is that this brings attention to the real issues and encourages community organizations to engage and lean on designer to help solve the problems."
This article has been updated to reflect that all the emerging architects are based in Charlotte, N.C.
