Architecture studio 11 x 17 had to retain historic details when converting a restaurant into a mixed-use building denverColorado, in a gallery Place for the Architectural League of New York.
When commissioned to design a seasonal gallery on the ground level of a five-story Denver building, 11 x 17 was instructed that they could puncture the drywall but must leave other details intact.
The studio was forced to work with pre-existing elements of a pizza shop, such as booth seating, a waffle roof, and even an oven.
To do this, it took a “panelized” approach, installing modular gypsum boards throughout the space, connected to a steel support system.
“Because of this constraint, we had to come up with a strategy of ‘hanging lightly’ on what already existed,” 11 x 17 co-principal Alex Yuen Lee told Dezeen.
“This, in turn, informs a tectonic language that is light, supple and delicate.”
Rather than completely conceal the restaurant’s details, the studio leaned into this “tectonic approach”, leaving gaps between panels and structure and leaving elements such as studs and clamps exposed.
According to the studio, this created a series of “boundaries” rather than enclosures.
11 x 17 states, “Original features including ceramic tiles, wood-panel booths and granite countertops remain visible and are reproduced by the new structure.”
“The result is a layered composition in which old and new material remain in active dialogue.”
This approach allows a degree of modularity within the space, giving curators the flexibility to move around panels depending on the type and scope of the exhibition.
Additional lights were hung to hang below the panels near eye level, in front of the glass windows opening into the complex’s parking lot. The gallery can also be seen at night due to lighting.
Lee said the studio leaned into mixing the institutional, white-wall gallery architecture with the more casual components of the restaurant.
“The choice to include a white-walled gallery is also practical: to offer a slightly institutional quality in contrast to the surrounding pizza-shop ambiance,” Lee said.
“We think that these two identities – one causal, one serious – when set against each other, could produce an interesting hybrid new identity for the neighborhood.”
Here, Lee is also referring to the fact that the building in general is part of a larger conversion plan converting the University of Colorado Anschutz campus into an “urban living” structure.
11 x 17 was founded in 2022 and is located between Denver and Toronto, Canada.
Other recent conversion projects include Neuhausl Hunnel Converting a cinema to a restaurant in Prague and Peterson Rich’s Insertion of a white wall gallery within the confines of a converted Detroit church,
photography is by James Florio,
Project Credit:
graphic design: Scott Vander Zee
project team: Alex Yuen Lee, Mahsa Malek, Gabriel Herrada Production team: Samantha Guerra, Jonah Williams, Tuul Battgerel, and Nicolas Villanueva
Help: Continuum Partners, University of Colorado Denver, Denver Art Museum
