The Foundry

A 1912 iron works in the east end, decommissioned for forty years, asked a simple question: how much should a building remember? Our answer — everything except the darkness.

The brick shell and its riveted roof trusses are kept whole. Inside, a new mass-timber mezzanine stands free of the original walls on its own slender frame, so the old and new structures never touch — a house inside a hall. Where the casting floor once ran, a double-height gallery holds the long north light.

One decisive cut: a clerestory monitor opened along the ridge, angled to throw daylight down the brick and across the gallery floor. The section below shows the geometry — the light path was drawn before the rooms were.