Athens Yard

This project restored and converted two attached timber-frame warehouses and an adjacent commissary built in the late 19th century—once a part of Hudson River’s ice trade—into a 49,900 SF artist’s studio for the production of large-scale steel sculpture. Located on a 3.4-acre site in the historic district of Athens on the west bank of Hudson’s River, the project involves restoration of the original structure, mitigation for the seasonal flooding, and conversion into a studio equipped for creating large-scale sculptures by the artist and her team. The architectural intervention involved stripping away of years of ad-hoc partitioning and damage. The restoration consists of replacing the roof, the trusses, and the openings, including the windows, the clerestory, and the overhead doors, pouring new concrete slabs, and repainting the exteriors. This first phase of work emphasizes the clarity of the barrel vaults and trusses, leaving the gray forms for primed for future installations in collaboration with the artist.