Location: Buffalo, NY

Scope: New Construction

Type: Park Pavilion

Status: In Construction

Size:  100 SF

Landscape Architect: TWLA

Located on Buffalo’s Outer Harbor, this existing 100,000 square foot cold storage warehouse building has been abandoned for over 30 years. The Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC) for the State of New York awarded our design team with the task of studying full renovation or demolition of the existing building for a new multi-use performance venue to active the City’s Lake Erie coastline with new public outdoor space amenities. The state is in the midst of a multi-phase process reconnecting people to the waterfront with a system of active public landscapes balancing ecological recovery, vibrant cultural attractions, and thoughtful connections to the heritage of the grain storage facilities that once thrived in the 20th century.

After a number of design iterations and life cycle assessments, we recommended that the steel frame and concrete foundations and slab were a significant part of the embodied carbon footprint of the building and did not warrant removal, but rather a creative adaptive reuse of the primary structural components. Retaining the structural skeleton signaled an opportunity to not only be an environmentally sensitive decision, but also be an opportunity to preserve the history of the site and activate a future use.

 The existing steel framing will be retained as a part of a public plaza space which will host outdoor concerts, open air markets, and sporting events. The renovated truss system will provide a floating frame to which objects such as solar panels, lights and (potentially) hanging sculptural installations are to be attached. A vibrantly colored new building is designed to float freely underneath the existing frame to create a dynamic tension between the preservation of the steel frame and the indoor restaurant and theater spaces. In full use, outdoor and indoor performance events are able to simultaneously occur with events on elevated plazas and roof decks, activating new activity and life on the waterfront in all seasons. Since the slab and foundation systems were initially built to support a cold storage facility with very high live loads, the new building is designed to be built with light weight aluminum panels and open web trusses to minimize impacts transfer of loads to the existing system.

The project also aims to set a precedent for sustainable design strategies with a focus on carbon neutrality, and is projected to be LEED platinum and LEED Zero that includes Net Zero Carbon, Net Zero Energy, Net Zero Water, and Net Zero Waste.