‘Blue sky’ designing is always the most fun. Ideas are definitely out there at this first concept stage, before the realities of budgets, timelines and practicality step in. Our prospective client asked us to design a 10,000 square foot (main floor) tourist commercial project, where artisans, specialty shops, eateries and the like would want to locate. Our clear mandate is to stop road traffic which is abundant for the site under consideration. Our solution was to create an old world ‘1860’s shipyard’ with a twist. Our prospective client is a talented steel fabricator who loves a challenge so instead of timber construction we substituted all steel structural members, trim and decoration with a definite steampunk flavour. We would specify bare corten steel throughout so it would acquire a rust patina but not degrade over time. There would be little maintenance on this structure. The lower floor is all retail and the upper floor would be deluxe condominiums. Should the project proceed it will be interesting to see how much of the original flavour we can keep intact. Imagine…
