This project is part of the urban revitalization underway in the downtown Nashville area. The original building was an empty manufacturing space in the SoBro area of Nashville. It has originally been a manufacturing plant for ink; therefore, the project & subsequent building name. The design intent was to incorporate the steel, joist girders, & joist into a modern structural look by leaving them exposed throughout the interior of the building. I addition, they were actually incorporated into prominent features of the exterior & interior of the building. The exterior shell of the building was kept intact to incorporate the older industrial look around the lower perimeter contrasted with the modern steel/metal siding on the new upper structure. The new steel structure required to grow this building to three stories was built independently on the interior of the old structure. The joist girders in the old structure were removed & re-purposed into the roof of the new structure & because prominent features in the interior space on the upper floor. This required the steel to be designed around the original joist girder dimensions. This also created a unique challenge for Vulcraft since they were required to manufacture a replacement joist girder that looked similar & was dimensionally exact to the older design but maintain the structural integrity required. The end product is an impressive architectural effort to preserve the past look & history of an existing building while combining it with the modern urban look that is required in today’s commercial space.
Project Completed: 2016
Steel Fabricator: Triple Steel, LLC
Architect/Designer: Manual Zeitlin Architects/Lesley Beeman
General Contractor: Erector: Wellspring Builders, Inc. / Triple Steel, LLC
