Northampton, MA – Local architect Caryn Brause was recently honored for her design that transformed a Springfield warehouse into the home of EcoBuilding Bargains, which sells used and surplus building materials at bargain prices to the community for home improvement projects. Brause married the concept of the store with the design of the building, featuring repurposed materials throughout the space while maximizing its energy efficiency.
Last Friday, Brause received the one of the Western Massachusetts chapter of the American Institute of Architects’ juried Merit Awards and People’s Choice Awards for the project. The project was voted by the public as the embodiment of excellent local design, and contributing to the quality of life throughout Western Massachusetts and beyond.
Brause’s firm, SITELAB Architecture + Design, partnered with the store’s parent organization, the Center for EcoTechnology, a local non-profit. Both are committed to minimizing ecological impact and reducing energy consumption evidenced in the store’s construction.
The retrofit cut the building’s energy use in half through high performance insulation, heating and lighting. The brilliant integration of reused materials is a focus throughout the design. One of the most obvious examples is the building’s vestibule, structured with recovered timbers and infilled with reused sliding doors and recycled material panels. It not only provides an airlock from the outside to the new insulated building, but teaches about repurposing by showing innovative methods for material reuse. Brause hopes the project will be a national model for how to make a 100-year-old building a modern green facility.
“The building’s design is not just about bringing in customers, it’s also about showing how you can give new life to an older inefficient building,” said Brause.
In addition to Brause’s professional work, she is also an Assistant Professor in the Architecture and Design Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she leads design studios and teaches digital design and communication. UMass students Angela DeGeorge and Kevin Sheehan assisted in the design of the structure as well as educational displays and signage used throughout the building