Project Details
- Project Name
- Loghaven Artist Residency
- Location
- TN
- Client/Owner
- The Aslan foundation
- Project Types
- Cultural
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Size
- sq. feet
- Awards
- 2021 AIA - National Awards
- Shared by
- Madeleine D'Angelo
- Project Status
- Built
An abridged version of the paragraph below appeared in the May/June 2021 issue of ARCHITECT as part of expanded coverage of the 2021 AIA Architecture Awards.
Log cabins—those archetypes of old American residential architecture, children’s toys, and black-and-white Westerns—get a remarkable update in the Loghaven Artist Residency, a project in Knoxville, Tenn., from local office Sanders Pace Architecture. Beginning with six Depression-era cabins, the designers set about creating a new live–work colony on the vast woodland site. The existing buildings, long out of use, were sensitively and smartly refurbished, retaining their 1930s charm while becoming comfortable contemporary homes for their artist occupants. Sanders Pace then added three new structures: the Gateway Building, the compound’s administrative and social hub, including dining, office, and exhibition spaces; and two freestanding studios, adaptable to different artistic pursuits and practices, such as dance and painting. Each structure adopts the same gabled silhouette and rustic materiality as its decades-old counterparts, but with a freshness and simplicity all its own.
Project Credits
Project: Loghaven Artist Residency (Jim McDonough House and Caretaker Residence), Knoxville, Tenn.
Client/Owner: Aslan Foundation
Architects: Brandon F. Pace, FAIA (principal-in-charge), John L. Sanders, FAIA, Michael A. Davis, AIA, Cameron S. Bolin, AIA, Andrew Newman, AIA, Geneva M. Hill
Interior Designer: Erin Fearins (Furnishings)
M/E/P Engineer: Smith Seckman Reid, Inc.
Structural Engineer: Haines Structural Group
Civil Engineer: Fulghum, Macindoe, & Associates, Inc.
General Contractor: Johnson & Galyon Construction
Landscape Architect: Stephen W. Hackney Landscape Architects
Lighting Designer: Sighte Studio
Sustainability & Commissioning: SSRcx
Acoustics and AV Engineer: Acoustic Distinctions
Graphic Design: Design Ranch
Size: 4,528 square feet
Materials and Products
Appliances: Bosch, Sub-Zero | Wolf
Bathroom Fixtures: Waterworks
Cabinets: Finish Point
Ceilings: Rulon International Inc.
Countertops: Stone Creek Surfaces
Door Hardware: Rocky Mountain Hardware
Exterior Wall Systems: (Exterior cladding) Delta Millworks
Flooring: Vermont Structural Slate
Furniture: Knoll; Carl Hansen & Son, De La Espada; BDDW
Glass: Viracon
Gypsum: USG
HVAC: Toshiba | Carrier
Insulation: Owens Corning; BASF
Kitchen fixtures: Waterworks, Kohler
Lighting Control Systems: Legrand
Lighting: 3G Lighting; Sistemalux; Structura; Brendan Ravenhill Studio; Rich Brilliant Willing; Insight Lighting; FLOS; Juniper; iGuzzini; B-K Lighting; H.E. Williams, Inc.; Beghelli
Metal: Range-Projects
Paints and Finishes: USG Imperial Plaster
Roofing: Rheinzink
Site and Landscape Products: Range-Projects
Wall Tile: Heath Ceramics
Windows and Doors: Duratherm
TruStile
Project Description
This project won a 2021 AIA Architecture Award. From the firm's 2021 AIA Award Submission:
In the heart of Knoxville's Battlefield Loop, a historic 600-acre woodland that overlooks the Tennessee River, this project has rehabilitated six log cabins dating to the 1930s. The cabins are now better suited as residences for visiting artists, and the campus is supported by a new Gateway Building and two purpose-built studio spaces for visual and performing artists. This project is also the first critical step of a plan to protect the region's most important but threatened historical, cultural, and natural assets.
The existing cabins on the site were built by Martha "Myssie" Thompson as rental homes for her family and mimicked the Depression-era’s Civilian Conservation Corps cabins. Until the mid-2000s, when the neglected property was targeted for large-scale development, Loghaven regularly attracted an eclectic group of creative visitors. As property values fell during the height of the Great Recession, the Aslan Foundation purchased the community in order to preserve and enhance the cabins and the land surrounding them. Years of collaboration, research, and coordination between the foundation and the design team shaped the rehabilitation project and ecological plans.
Significant deferred maintenance and haphazard additions made it clear to the team that the 80-year-old cabins could not last much longer. After stabilizing each cabin, the team carefully retained the original character while modernizing them to better serve artists. The new construction complements the character of the cabins but reinterprets their scale and materiality in new ways. The new and old buildings are connected by existing roads and pathways and a new trail system that winds through the forest and woodlands.
The Gateway Building was the first new construction on the site, and it functions as Loghaven's operations center. Housing a gallery, a director's office, a commercial kitchen run by a local chef, and a multidisciplinary studio, the building is tucked into an existing stand of hardwoods. A new caretaker residence and one of the original cabins sit adjacent to it.
A short walk from the Gateway Building, the companion studios feature flexible workspaces that accommodate visual and performing artists. Though designed with privacy in mind, both studios feature panoramic windows that offer sweeping views of the landscape and the Smoky Mountains beyond.
Throughout the design process, the team gathered stories from former residents, neighbors, and friends about their experiences at Loghaven. Those stories of positive impact were developed into an exhibition, the first to be displayed in the Gateway Building's gallery.
Project Credits
Landscape Architect: Stephen W. Hackney Landscape Architects
Interior Designer: Erin Fearins (Furnishings)
Sustainability & Commissioning: SSRcx
Lighting Designer: Sighte Studio
Graphic Design: Design Ranch
Structural Engineer: Haines Structural Group
M/E/P Engineer: Smith Seckman Reid, Inc.
Civil Engineer: Fulghum, Macindoe, & Associates, Inc.
Acoustics Engineer: Acoustic Distinctions
General Contractor: Johnson & Galyon
Project Team for Artist Cabins
Landscape Architect: Stephen W. Hackney Landscape Architects
Interior Designer: Lauderdale Design Group (Furnishings)
Structural Engineer: Haines Structural Group
M/E/P Engineer: Facility Systems Consultants, LLC
Civil Engineer: Fulghum, Macindoe, & Associates, Inc.
General Contractor: Johnson & Galyon
Project Team for Artist Studios
Landscape Architect: Stephen W. Hackney Landscape Architects
Structural Engineer: Haines Structural Group
M/E/P Engineer: Facility Systems Consultants, LLC
Civil Engineer: Fulghum, Macindoe, & Associates, Inc.
General Contractor: Johnson & Galyon