ROGERS KRAJNAK ARCHITECTS, INC.
Columbus, OH
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This project is the renovation of a 14,000 square foot building in downtown Columbus to accommodate our architectural firm and tenants. The two-story building is located on a narrow urban site three blocks south of the Statehouse in downtown Columbus, Ohio. The surrounding urban block is active with renovation and redevelopment. The building has historically been an automobile repair and sales facility. The portion of the building that was renovated into an architects' office was a former muffler shop. One of our design goals was to celebrate the simple industrial character of this former garage structure. The existing garage bays became the design module to organize the architects' space into a one-bay conference room, a two-bay conference room, a four-bay studio and workroom spaces. The new clear anodized aluminum storefront installed in seven of the former garage bay openings relate to the character of the former glass garage doors including the aluminum panels at the base of the storefront. These windows offer incredible views of the downtown Columbus skyline from the conference rooms and studio while bringing diffused north light into those spaces. The new exposed wood roof structure in the studio was sprayed with three coats of lacquer to provide a rich warmness to the space. The concrete floors in the circulation spine, workroom and conference rooms were painted shop gray.

The fifty-six inch high built-in maple bookshelves that flank the circulation spine as it angles through the architects' studio also contain the firm's library. Overhead, laminated wood beams and 2x6 joists differentiate the geometry of the spine from the rest of the roof structure as it connects the workspace, studio and lobby. A textured metallic panel anchors the west end of the spine in the reception area while the east end terminates in a glass block panel that glows each morning with the east light.

As one approaches the exterior of the building from the north, bright colored aluminum channels wrap around the building from the north façade, to the west façade to the south facade. Along the way these bands become sunshades over the west facing glass and continue as sunshades and canopies over the south facing storefront entrances. The sunshades control heat gain and glare. New windows in the west and north facades provide dynamic views from the first and second floors into the urban streetscape.