Adaptive Re-Use Development | Greenwood Restaurant
Highwood, IL
Designed to house a restaurant in the ground level, and office space in the second level; this former storage facility building has added a layer of history to its walls. To allow for a clean program distribution, a vertical circulation volume has been added on the Southwest corner of the building. Understanding the importance reprogramming building plays is our society, DMAC Architecture has kept the original structure as intact as possible, making visible the history layers it has gone through. The original structural brick wall are nude, and the loading docks are now floor to ceiling openings, connecting the indoors and outdoors spaces.
Located in by the Metra rail tracks, and in the periphery of a residential suburb, the layout of the project plays off both scales. The ground floor closes itself to the transportation arteries, opening to the residential street. In addition, the first floor includes small scale materials that are designed to relax and harmonize, whereas the second floor is a clean minimal volume that works best with the high speeds at which drivers and train passengers will experience it. The result is a highly flexible distribution that seamlessly connects interior and exterior and dining and casual drinking area, being able to adapt to different situations in matter of seconds.
