A makeover of an ordinary commercial building that never got much of a second look. A modest sleight-of-hand rather than a grandiose, iconic architectural signature. As straight-forward in use as it is enigmatic in appearance. As if almost nothing had changed.

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This project is a small warehouse located along a commercial strip in a mixed-use suburban neighborhood. Adjacent to an excavation company’s parking lot, down the street from a roadside motel, and mixed in with a collection of former single-family homes converted into professional offices, this renovation of a non-descript 1-story machine shop is situated within a scene of vernacular ubiquity - a place in which architecture appears to be conspicuously absent.

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The scope of work includes exterior and interior alterations to an existing primary structure, a new accessory structure, and general site improvements. A new site plan transforms what was an undeveloped lot into a multi-building complex with an integrated series of enclosed gardens and flexible work yards. The primary function of the new 2,000 SF program is the storage of commercial kitchen equipment. Storage, repair, and shipping activities are organized across a shared courtyard bookended by the old and new buildings. The main building doubles as a parttime showroom. Its key design feature is a public facade conceived of as an abstract, generic rectangle, with a blind entry door and no signage. It is compositionally clear, materially precise, but semantically blank. This building does not try to explain itself, put on a show, or beg for your attention. It is just there. Offering up a blank stare. Inspired by the “dead-pan” ethos of photographic documentaries of the “everyday”, such as Ed Rusha’s “26 Gasoline Stations”, as much as it is by the client’s desire for anonymity and modest budget, the new architecture is imbued with a “flat” affect that is both familiar and foreign. It aims to blur the line between what we understand as architecture versus not-architecture through the kind of attention that it seeks to engender - a “double take”.