Richard Gray Gallery Warehouse

Project Details

Project Description

“Don’t screw it up”

- An old machine shop was found, off the beaten path, up against the tracks.
- A gallery owner asked us to look at it.
- Messed up façade. Tired, listing trusses, rotting roof/drain-heads, cracked/heaved slab over slab.
- But the span, the height, the monitor light was right. Finding the rear courtyard sealed the deal.
- We said to ourselves, “Don’t screw it up”

The Sequence:
- One space to receive
- One space to present/absorb/reflect
- One space to meander/tinker/discover
- One space, outdoors, to catch ones’ breath

The Work
Shell:
- Roof trusses were restored, reinforced and tensioned; purlins, structural decking replaced, sandblasted to expose the Douglas Fir.
- A central portal was opened, for vehicles and pedestrians alike (design problem: concealed security shutter, sectional truck bay door, accessible entry on property line, all in “one move”).

Within:
- A new concrete floor, ground, carefully rises, plateaus, rises.
- Atop this, a visually disengaged, “floating, inner liner” of flat white painted gypsum.
- Douglas Fir reception top and library shelves.
- Heights and widths and depths and lines are implicitly interrelated.
- New metals are brushed silver; structure, sash, mechanical, lighting, fans, trim.
- Two large rolling walls live in the main room, each the width of one portal. (These are initially mudded together, but will migrate over time.)

That’s it.

- Donald Judd said “art and architecture should always be symmetrical except for good reason”.
- Bill Turnbull said he wanted “my work to appear that of a farmer”, as if he was not there.

It’s harder than it looks.