Project Description
Priorities
• Create an office that fits a company ethos of creativity
• Accommodate plans for the company’s growth
Solutions
Peddle,
an Internet used-car sales portal based in Austin, recently moved to
the 19th century Buttrey Building, which had seen its share of tenants
and renovations over the years. Alterstudio Architects renovated the
building’s top floor to fit Peddle’s company culture and create flexible
space for future growth.
The designers removed standard
partitions and lay-in ceilings and used the rough old structure as a raw
frame for the new space. “There were certain things we knew would be
fixed like the conference rooms, rest rooms, break room/kitchen,” says
Alterstudio’s Ernesto Cragnolino. They designed the entire space as a
large loft subdivided by the fixed rooms. Open work space flows around
those rooms.
Varied lighting arrays help define different office
areas, and a 16-foot wall also allows for space to be redefined. They
created impromptu meeting spaces inside a fretted timber screen or a
repurposed concrete elevator shaft. Furnishings can easily change over
time.
To create the sense of fun and creativity the clients
wanted, Alterstudio Architects worked with One.Eleven.Design to design
one room covered in synthetic grass that holds a pool table, another has
a series of hammocks. There’s a custom light fixture fabricated from
hundreds of joist hangers that seems to zip through the administration
area, and fluorescent tube lights hang like trapezes over the creative
and lounge areas. Benches and walls are delineated with acoustical
panels made from compacted porous expanded polypropylene tubes.
Throughout, the designers gave a nod to the original structure in the
exposed floor joists, wide planked wood floors, and sections of bare
stone wall butting against painted brick and drywall. In all, new
materials and old blend together seamlessly.
Judges’ Comments
This project was one of the judges’ favorites. They loved the “cool
conference box,” the “thickness of all the elements,” the massing and
the simple palette. The use of remnants and their juxtaposition to newer
elements is “really striking.” “I’d like to work here,” one judge said.
Products:
Bathroom plumbing fittings: Hansgrohe
Bathroom plumbing fixtures: Toto; Moen
Countertops: Caesarstone
Flooring: Allstate — rubber floor; reclaimed wood flooring
Hardware: Sun Valley Bronze
Kitchen plumbing fittings: Elkay; Hansgrohe
Lighting fixtures: Louis Poulsen, custom joist lighting; Lithonia; Stile, Pavo tube lights
Paints/stains: Benjamin Moore
Siding: Elmwood, reclaimed barn wood
Other: Sound Silencer acoustical panel; Always Greener artificial grass; Molo soft wall workspace dividers