The writer, Barry Moore, is Senior Associate with Gensler and a member of the Cite editorial committee.

Since the city’s founding 180 years ago, the northernmost street in downtown Houston has been called “Commerce,” for obvious reasons. Just beyond this edge of town White Oak Bayou met Buffalo Bayou, forming the original Port of Houston at Allen’s Landing. Commerce was the gateway for lumber, livestock, and cotton going out, and everything else coming in. By the turn of the 20th Century, Commerce was better known as “Produce Row,” a kind of wholesale market place for fruits and vegetables to feed the growing city. By mid-century all these business enterprises had migrated to roads easier for trucks to navigate and further from the bayou.

A postcard from "Produce Row, light colored building on the left is the Riesner Building." Courtesy Barry Moore.

 

Front facade rendering. Courtesy Murphy Mears.

 

Gallery rendering. Courtesy Murphy Mears.

 

Side facade rendering. Courtesy Murphy Mears.

 

Glass windows facing Commerce Street connect the Architecture Center building to the outside world. Photo courtesy Architecture Center Houston.

 

Architecture Center Houston Elevations. Courtesy Murphy Mears.

 

Architecture Center Houston floor plan. Photo courtesy Murphy Mears.

 

Rendering showing the versatility of the Architecture Center's Gallery. Photo courtesy Murphy Mears.

 

The "Made/Unmade" exhibit in the Bayou Place location. Photo courtesy Architecture Center Houston.

 

Very little of the original commercial buildings remain, so it’s hard to imagine how things were when the port of Houston was where Main Street ended. But those few that do are evidencing a spurt of adaptive reuse for new occupants, promising dramatic change to the northern edge of the Main Street/Market Square Historic District – and a new identity to Produce Row.

A surprising new owner is now at home at the corner of Commerce and Travis, and promises to be a vital addition to Houston’s cultural scene. After a three-year search that included over thirty potential sites, the American Institute of Architects Houston Chapter selected the 1906 Riesner Building, to be the home of Architecture Center Houston, which is expected to open in mid-September.

Originally, the three-story Riesner Building was a typical commercial building for its time, complete with double French doors facing the street. A previous owner gutted the timber-framed interior, leaving only the exterior walls, and built a concrete parking garage on the second and third floor levels. Not only does the renovated first floor provide office and meeting space for the professional organization with 2,000 members and 26 standing committees, it also contains public exhibition space for all types of design. An added bonus is the vacant “Boiler Room,” originally built to service the connected 1911 Southern Pacific Building, offering additional space for showings and events.

Since 2007, Architecture Center Houston had made a home in Bayou Place, formerly the Albert Thomas Convention Center. The lease expired this year, prompting the move. Once negotiations for the Riesner Building were in play, the board initiated a competition among members to design the new space. After the review of 28 submittals and three finalists, the jury unanimously selected the scheme prepared by Murphy Mears Architects.

The team included Architects Walter Murphy, Kirby Mears and Kyle Humphries, MKL, Interior Design, Walter P. Moore, Civil, Cardno, Structural, KCI, MEP Consultants, Kirksey, Sustainability Consultants, and Page, Commissioning Agent. The Construction effort was led by Harvey Builders, and included Sacaris Studio, metal fabrications. Additional services and contributions came from Debner, Steelcase, Brochsteins, Elegant Additons, Dungan Miller, and SPARQ1200.

The first inspiration for the Murphy Mears design began with the Boiler Room, a 2,300-square-foot space, adjacent to the main floor, but eight feet below its surface. It’s an impressive volume, 23 feet tall, and sky lit. Inspired by benchmarks like the Venice Bienniale, known for launching art installations in vacant industrial buildings, the architects chose to celebrate the rough concrete and masonry walls, with minimal intervention. When completed, a broad new ramp around the perimeter will provide additional wall hanging areas. It’s a natural for major exhibitions.

The second inspiration was to provide a visual connection to Commerce Street. New glass windows where wood warehouse doors originally stood offer views into the interior and vice versa. The reception desk is at the back of the exhibit area instead of at the door, decluttering the vista into the space. The penetration of natural light is another big factor in the design, enhanced by high transoms on the Travis Street side, and light white floors and ceilings.

The highly functional interior is seriously flexible, dramatically demonstrated by rolling steel panel systems that can move to accommodate differing needs of exhibit and meeting spaces. The architects early on realized that flexibility can be complicated to create, but to their credit, the completed project comes together naturally and logically. They made it look easy.

The near certainty of flooding in this 100-year flood plain was a difficult challenge to face. There is a steel, manually operated floodgate at the entry, designed so that water pressure will keep it closed. Steel and aluminum wainscots below the Commerce Street windows and along the Travis Street façade will further discourage water penetration.

The design team, construction team, and owners appeared to have been one of the happiest groups in town, a blessing for any project. Careful attention to problem solving, scheduling and budgeting prevailed throughout. Everyone involved described it as a labor of love.

Produce Row currently is a work in progress, but shows the promise of being a destination in a very short while. The Buffalo Bayou Partnership has completed renovations of the Sunset Coffee Building at Allen’s Landing, and biking and canoeing operations are developing. The historic buildings at the corner of Commerce and Main are due soon for an upgrade in façade and tenancy. The UH Downtown classroom building is only a block away. The Bayou Lofts in the old Southern Pacific Building will soon house a bar, restaurant, and microbrewery. Market Square is but two blocks away flanked by new residential towers. And the reputedly haunted Spaghetti Warehouse is still going strong. The infrastructure could not be better – light rail on main, great street trees on Travis, historic brick paving on Commerce – and the greensward, sloping down to Allen’s Landing, is just across the street.

The city can look forward to bigger and better exhibits in the Architecture Center. Past offerings have featured Women in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Interior Design, Stage Design, Environmental Graphics, and the work of talented local artists and craftsmen. “Made/Unmade” the last show in the old space, curated by Eric Arnold and Michael Gonzales, both of the University of Houston, was a blockbuster indicator of what we can expect in the future; the show celebrated the work of all kinds of Houston designers, with an emphasis on making things. It was furniture, industrial design, building products, jewelry – in short, anything that could be dreamed up and made.

The Architecture Center Houston stands a good chance of becoming the cultural heart of the district, with its changing exhibits and brightly lit show windows – and in the process transforming Produce Row into a street of creativity for the 21st century.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article called the lofts in the old Southern Pacific Building the Franklin Lofts. They are the Bayou Lofts.

More Articles tagged “Architecture + Reviews”