Photography by Aaron Usher III Photography
St. Jude Parish
January 5th, 2011Pannone Lopes Devereaux & West
August 14th, 2010Pannone Lopes Devereaux & West is a professional law practice with offices across the east coast. LLB Architects was hired to envision an expansion of the offices into the retrofitted American Locomotive Complex in Providence, RI. Working closely with the Director of Administration, several options were explored while the original modest 2,200 square foot expansion evolved into almost 9,000 sf including a new reception area, conference and “war” rooms, partners’ offices and a 2,700 sf finished area that was initially intended to be leased to a separate tenant but will soon be absorbed into the rapidly expanding full service law firm.
Working within the existing design criteria and context of the mill complex, LLB was able to create an efficient and dynamic space that connects both sides and both ends of the building with a central glass reception area that allows for separate access to the temporary tenant space without distraction from main lobby presence of the Firm. In an effort to be as sustainable as possible, reused items were relocated and adaptively reused and redesigned to create a new feel for the company.
Center for Teaching and Learning at Bryant University
May 13th, 2010The Center for Teaching and Learning at Bryant University is part of a larger project to masterplan and renovate the Unistructure building. The suite includes classrooms and open environments for the school’s Academic Center of Excellence (ACE) and several other specialized learning programs. The idea was to create different types of spaces to accommodate the range of tutoring services that the center offers, whether private one-on-one tutoring, or collaborative sessions, or lecture environments.
Photography by Aaron Usher III Photography
Miller/Carr Residence
December 18th, 2009Situated on a sloping and forested 3 acre secluded lot, the Miller/Carr Residence is sited to preserve the trees and rocks that the client adventured through as a child. The form of the house creates distinctive spaces at the entry, the garden of native vegetation, and the outdoor patio with open connection to the living space inside. The program is arranged within two intersecting bars with juxtaposing form and materiality, a complement to the personalities of the husband and wife clients. The two story traditional bar with gable ends is clad in Alaskan yellow cedar and contains the private areas of the home. The one story contemporary bar features metal corrugated siding and contains the public areas of the home in an open floor plan. At their crossing, the kitchen is the hearth of the home where the family gathers each night to eat and celebrate in each other’s company.
Photography by John Horner Photography
Head of School Residence
December 17th, 2009The Moses Brown School includes a campus of more than 22 buildings of varying ages and styles. The new Head of School’s residence is located in a residential neighborhood at the edge of this campus on the East Side of Providence. Its design was shaped by the context and values of these communities.
The simple form of its two story edifice is in keeping with the scale of its neighbors. Smaller scale wings, reminiscent of garden pavilions, envelope program elements while avoiding ostentation or grandeur. Materials choices and restraint of ornamentation have been made with respect to Quaker Values and practicality.
The house serves as residence and event venue. It contains three bedrooms, study with private bath, plus finished basement room with large windows suitable for recreation room, office extra bedroom or catering space, 4 ½ baths total, large living room, kitchen, casual dining and family room at south side of house. It allows for private living and easy, welcoming, reception of community at many scales. The flow of spaces and paths of travel are designed for both to happen simultaneously.
Interior design was a collaborative process with Katherine Glendinning. Materials, spaces and detailing are used with restraint in keeping with exterior. Flat stock standing and running trim precisely wrap window heads, deep set doors and become book cases or interior lattice. Durable oak floors are used throughout. The interiors are filled with light. Windows frame the adjacent Meeting house and overlook the school’s football field.
Exterior photography by Hassan Bagheri
Interior photography by Aaron Usher III Photography
Gammel House
December 16th, 2009The interior renovation of this East Providence apartment transformed it from an awkward and circuitous space, into a clear and organized volume anchored by a central mass. The long and linear space on the third floor of the apartment was previously broken up by an enclosed kitchen with doorways on either side, forcing the residents to take a zig-zagging path to get from one end of the floor to the other. With a smart plan reconfiguration, a central component in the space becomes a focal point and means of organization, with the kitchen on one end facing the dining room, and a fireplace on the other, facing the living area. Circulation paths on both sides of the mass allow people to easily flow from one space to the next in the shortest and quickest way possible. Additional storage areas were added by building up the wall thickness and creating built-in cabinets for a unified feel across the entire floor.
Photography by Kathleen A. Bartels
RI Division of Motor Vehicles
December 10th, 2009The three-story, 69,000 sf building, located in the Pastore Government Center of Cranston, had been in continuous use as an office facility for the State’s Department of Human Services since its construction in 1970. During that time several building systems had been repaired and upgraded, including the recent replacement of exterior glazing. Conversion of the building to serve the DMV required a multi-faceted plan to maximize efficiency, quality, and safety.
A large part of programming involved meticulous study of the various functions of the DMV, organized and presented to the State in a comprehensive programming document for cost and space analysis. Programming designs required the ability to process a large quantity of public patrons, accounted for via enhanced entrances able to accommodate large numbers of patrons and staff. The large lobby and atrium opens up to a custom-designed 12’ wide monumental stair of architectural grade steel and art glass. A series of linear zones provides logical, legible separation of activity, complemented with an integral way-finding system at all intersections which creates controlled circulation patterns. A two-sided elliptical license and registration service counter promotes the even distribution of patrons and provides heightened control of views and privacy. The design is sensitive to accessibility by eliminating ramps, instead utilizing gently-sloped walkways and universally-designed service counter heights. This focus on creating organizational strategies carried into furniture layouts, desk design, and circulation patterns, intended to eliminate confusion and crowding while streamlining the process for everyone.
Maintaining a clear view to the natural day lighting of the atrium brings much-welcomed light into the core of the building, with potential glare from the curtain wall mitigated through the use of vertical exterior sun-shading devices, which act as super signage for the highway. Excavation of former below-grade space and the introduction of windows further open the building to daylight.Custom lighting reiterates the grid-like organization of the building, with recessed lighting that highlights the linear zones of circulation, and pendants and bollards that demarcate movement and waiting areas. State of the art energy efficient systems, enhanced security consistent with the latest National Homeland Security regulations, and all-inclusive renovation of building systems complete this thorough adaptive reuse project.
Photography by Warren Jagger Photography
Acton Town Hall
December 8th, 2009The historic Town Hall in Acton, Massachusetts was built in 1862 in the Italianate style, a 2 ½ story gable form facing the historic Common. A commanding façade, the 3-bay main face is highlighted by a decorative entrance porch, Palladian-style window and two stage cupola with a concave pyramidal roof topped by a weathervane. The original slate roof had served the building well for almost 145 years when the Town made the decision to replace it. Working with the Town facilities department, LLB Architects created measured drawings and construction details to faithfully replace the roofing material with new slate. In a later project, LLB was hired to create documents for preservation painting work. These projects shall help to maintain this historic structure for the next 150 years to maintain this historic structure for the next 150 years.
J. Walter Wilson Student Resource Building at Brown University
November 17th, 2009The J. Walter Wilson Laboratory is located at the corner of Brown and Waterman Streets, across from the Faunce Arch, with the opportunity of being a gateway building to the campus. The original building, a 1960’s modern brick and limestone monolith, and the 1980’s brick pier addition with mirrored glazing, never engaged the campus despite its optimal location.
Recasting the former laboratory as a student resource building and vibrant communications hub required a multi-faceted approach. At the entrance, LLB Architects removed the bifurcated exterior brick stairs and shifted the entrance from the second floor to the first floor, cleared out many of the exterior masonry and concrete walls to allow light and views to enter the lower entry level, and removed the inelegant diagonal between the two towers. In its place, we extended the glass curtain wall up to form a “beacon-like” tower. This allows building inhabitants to visually connect with the campus around them. The campus community can in turn visually and physically connect with the new communications hub.
The 66,000 sf program for the J. Walter Wilson adaptive reuse project included relocating and consolidating eleven different administrative and student service departments from buildings scattered around campus to enable other capital projects to move forward; relocating campus mail services, with the associated service deliveries, volume of traffic, and security considerations; providing eight to twelve registrar classrooms; and coordinating with campus chiller project planned to occupy the top floor. A new entrance and legible circulation were not required parts of the program, but seemed essential to a successful solution.
Designed as a purpose-built laboratory building, with rigorous 10-foot structural grid, tilt-up concrete shear walls and labyrinthian circulation, the bunker-like architecture strongly resisted transformation to support its rebirth as a communications hub for the campus. The overriding charge to the team for this project was that, as an “enabling” project to allow other slated capital projects to move forward, the schedule was absolutely fixed. With the construction manager as the architect’s partner as a design/build team, they worked closely to ensure that budget and schedule were met along with the design objectives. Together the team developed detailed phasing to bring portions online, with the occupancy and full functionality of the building complete before classes started in September 2008.
Photography by Warren Jagger Photography
English Department at Brown University
November 16th, 2009The expansion of the historic Wheaton House creates a new place and creates a place and identity for the Department of English, the largest academic department at Brown University, which had been scattered around the campus in various buildings. The site is a mixed residential and university neighborhood in Providence’s historic College Hill, adjacent to Brown University’s Main Green.
The primary design objective was to design a contextual response to the existing 9,000 sf Wheaton House while reestablishing Fones Alley as a defined urban space. The Samuel B. Wheaton House was built as a single-family residence in 1850 at the corner of Brown and Angell Streets. The 2.5 story brick Italianate structure was originally built for a wholesale grocer and later was populary named the Carr House when it became the home of Carr’s Catering, a well-known institution on the East Side. A new 29,000 sf addition on the Wheaton House integrates the large program sensitively into the campus and residentially-scaled neighborhood.
Lead-coated-copper clad connectors are recessed between sensitively-scaled brick pavilions to preserve the integrity of the original house. The thoughtful massing of the design reduces the scale of the project within a constricted site and neighborhood.
The building’s halves, housing the English Department and Creative Writing program, are conceptually bridged across Fones Alley by mirroring entry arcades and window bays. The two buildings fill in the formerly nondescript end of Fones Alley and reinstitute the mews-like character of the alley.
The largest interior room is the black-box theater for lectures and student productions. An upper gallery provides three-dimensional use of the space as well as a sound and light booth. Other theatre components include a “green” room, dressing rooms and storage. A total of 49 faculty offices and 18 teaching assistant offices are included in the building’s plan along with a “smart classroom” that utilizes the latest technology and flexible seating arrangements adaptable for traditional teaching methods.
In keeping with Gertrude Stein’s quotation on the building, “And then there is using everything,”… LLB achieved an integration of modern and historic elements into a harmonious whole.
Photography by Warren Jagger Photography
