Project Walk-Through

RedLine

Denver, Colorado

Brian Schmidt, AIA
Semple Brown Design-Denver, Colorado

BY NORA BURBA TRULSSON

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RON POLLARD

RedLine’s reception area opens onto the central gallery.

Laura Merage is a Denver artist and arts patron who had a singular vision: She wanted to help emerging and mid-career artists by bringing them together as a community, to be mentored by established artists. Her vision took on a concrete form as RedLine, a new visual arts center that houses 13 artists’ studios and is the site for numerous arts-related exhibitions, community events and educational programs.

Semple Brown Design, the Denver architectural firm behind the arts center, is also known for its visionary designs and community involvement, with signature projects such as the Ellie Caulkins Opera House and the Larimer Square revitalization in downtown Denver, as well as residential, hospitality and commercial projects throughout the state.

Pivoting drywall panels open to link the main gallery to the reception area. When opened, the panel’s reveal the ceiling’s symbolic red line.

Large drywall boxes serve as portable walls for exhibits.

An artist’s studio opens onto the central gallery.

“The client, Laura Merage, came to us with the challenges of helping talented artists obtain recognition, fostering interaction and giving back to the community,” says architect Brian Schmidt, a Semple Brown Design principal who served as the design lead on RedLine. “Our job was to transform an existing building to meet those challenges.”

The client had already secured a 20,000-square-foot former vacuum parts warehouse for the project, which was located in a fringe neighborhood of downtown Denver between Curtis Park and Arapahoe Square. The warehouse, built in the early 1970s, was essentially a windowless concrete bunker, with a raised floorplate that had served a large loading dock at one end of the rectangular building. The interior, however, was one wide-open space that offered endless possibility and a minimum of interior demolition work.

Left: Raw block walls and polished concrete floors provide a backdrop for the reception area’s simple furnishings. Right: The library is paneled in wood recycled from the building’s old mezzanine.

“It was a decidedly unsexy building,” explains Schmidt of the existing structure. “The raised floorplate, apparently, had thrown off previous potential occupants, but we found we could work with it. We also liked the polished concrete floors and the raw concrete block walls.”
Schmidt and the Semple Brown Design team created a floorplan to encourage interaction between the artists by ringing a central exhibition space with a series of studios, each to be occupied by an artist. “The artists have to cross the central gallery to get anywhere in the building,” Schmidt says. “It serves as a social mixing chamber.”

Ten smaller studios--each about 280 square feet--serve emerging and mid-career artists, while three larger studios were designed for established artists. The former loading dock was replanned as the reception area, with an adjoining library, while a separate community arts space was placed adjacent to the entry. The floorplan also includes a private office, restroom facilities large enough to handle group gatherings, a social lounge for the artists and a small kitchen/staging area for caterers.

Mesh fencing surrounds the outdoor plaza.

For the exterior, Schmidt and the architectural team suggested the addition of big stretches of glass along the former loading dock side of the building to make it seem more transparent and inviting, as well as to add natural light to the space. The old opaque garage doors were replaced with glass garage doors that can be rolled up on balmy days or for evening events. As the floor level is about three feet above grade, removable railings can be snapped into place when the garage doors are up. Some of the building’s exterior concrete detailing was removed and replaced with a metal skin that wraps around part of the structure. New exterior lighting also helps modernize the building.

New signage and lighting add interest to the exterior.

Schmidt created an outdoor gathering plaza just off the main entrance and accessible to the community arts space. The raised plaza, planted with shrubs and small trees, is level with the building’s floor and accessed from the street via new, broad entry stairs and an ADA-compliant ramp, which winds up and around the plaza. An attractive mesh fence and gate provide security.

As a finishing touch, one exterior wall was covered with a large-scale mural, created by a local artist and executed by community members. The mural will change from year to year, to allow different people to participate in the art project.

New windows and glass garage doors on the loading-dock side of the building add natural light to the interior.

Inside, materials were kept simple. “I like to say that this is the interior that gyp board built,” says Schmidt with a laugh. Indeed, the reception desk is constructed of drywall, Richlite countertops and metal, and next to the desk, what seems like a vast expanse of blank wall is actually three drywall panels that pivot open for exhibitions and events, linking the reception area with the main exhibit hall. Five large drywall “boxes” serve as portable walls for the exhibit hall, where the resident artists are encouraged to display their work. The walls can be reconfigured as needed or placed in the storage room when not in use.

Other details reiterate the building’s raw, urban ambiance. New track lighting provides flexibility for the studios and exhibit space, while the library--filled with art books--was paneled with wood recycled from the floor of the building’s old mezzanine. Furnishings are minimal--some seating in the reception area and a simple shelving system for the library.
And, when the three pivoting panels are opened, they reveal a red line in the ceiling between the reception area and exhibit hall. The line serves as a metaphor for the arts center and the art, that of stepping outside the boundaries of what is known and expected.

The warehouse before its transformation.

Redline, says Schmidt, has been a runaway success since its opening last summer. More than 70 artists applied for studio space (for which a modest rent is paid), and the arts center has hosted numerous exhibits and community events, including a fundraiser for the Denver Art Museum and an AIA Colorado Young Architects gala. The Denver Post lauded it as “a new center for art, a new sort of arts philanthropy.”

For Semple Brown Design, the RedLine project won the firm design awards from AIA Denver and AIA Colorado. It also received a Denver Mayor’s Design Award.

Architecture and interiors: Semple Brown Design, 1160 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO 80204; (303) 571-4137 or www.semplebrowndesign.com.
General contractor: Spectrum General Contractors, 5135 E. 38th Ave., Denver, CO 80207; (303) 329-8032 or www.spectrumgc.com.
Countertops: Richlite, www.richlite.com.

See Web-only extra images of this project.