Arch 8253 - Graduate Studio - Professor Andrzej Piotrowski- GDII
 
 
The existing Soap Factory is located in the Minneapolis Mill District, to the East of the Pillsbury Mill. This site provides the opportunity to use an existing structure that has our cultural heritage embedded on its walls for part of the redevelopment, connecting visitors to the past. Through my development of the remainder of the site, I buried the new structure and created a green roof that serves as an extension to the existing park, leading up to the original structure and leaving its historical facade exposed.
  
 
The addition to the existing Soap Factory transfers the visitor from the urban streetscape into an interior commercial artery or onto the ramped prairie scape and then into the existing building. Within the existing building, boxes of new program spaces are inserted, allowing visitors to walk through and understand the heritage and the building’s past purposes separately from their modern shopping and entertainment needs.
  
 
 
The addition to the south side of the Soap Factory, commercial space below a ramped green roof, allows the existing historical structure to be the image of the development, using form and light to draw the visitor into the shopping center.
  
 
 
 
On the interior of the historical Soap Factory structure the walls and floors are preserved through the stepping back of new program spaces. The new program spaces - a special event space, gallery, and commercial space - are housed in thermally sealed boxes that are exposed to the transitional spaces. The floors of the new program boxes are elevated above the existing floors and the ventilation and lighting are concealed within the new ceiling, allowing the boxes to appear to stand alone, organized as nodes within the greater whole. A separate service zone runs ventilation and piping vertically through the structure, then duct work runs along the beams to conceal service the boxes.
 
 
Mindful of the historical facade, the new structure is excavated into the site, allowing the first level to connect Main Street and the existing basement. This creates a pedestrian artery that guides the visitor from the street scape into the commercial area, transitioning them into the existing structure. The commercial space is one concrete shell, divided by the transitional artery sandwiched between the thermal spaces, allowing lag heat to enter from both sides.
 
 
When approaching the Soap Factory from the north side the visitor encounters the existing structure; through windows and on the rooftop the boxes of new program spaces are visible.
 
 
 
On the north side of the existing Soap Factory two new program spaces require more restrictive conditions than the commercial and special event space. Within the structure is an experimental theater space that requires controlled lighting and sound. The walls are sheathed with a folded Aero metal that is elevated off the ground to call out the addition of the box as separate from the existing shell. On top of the Soap Factory a new box is added for a thermally controlled gallery space. Sitting next to the exposed exterior gallery space, this box provides artwork with financial value a space in the gallery and promotes the Soap Factory as a 2nd Street beacon, exposing the life and events in progress at the gallery.