The Equinox Showroom was an exercise in repurposing a beloved existing art gallery. After being served a demolition notice, the client went on to locate a rundown factory in a light-industrial area and approached the original architects for help. Rather than build new, materials were reclaimed and migrated from the existing gallery into a new configuration, all at breakneck speed during the pandemic. The first phase of the project was the “unbuild”—if something could be salvaged from the original gallery, it was. Of particular note are the kinetic walls, which were thickened to resemble building blocks and manipulated to fit the envelope of the site. The architects introduced some new materials, such as an iron oxide primer in a nod to the site’s manufacturing heritage, & retained the idea of a lower gallery at the horizon line with an industrial sky above, two aspects that were much revered by visitors to the original gallery. The architects have worked responsibly to rescue the gallery’s interiors from demolition and to creatively breathe new life into a dying typology. The result has been a welcome collision of the cultural and residential worlds in a post-industrial setting.
