301 Main
Sector
Downtown
Location
Saint Joseph, Michigan
Year
2015
Design Team
John Allegretti, Dave Johnson
Photography & Drone
James Yochum & White Barn Photography
Adaptive reuse is one of the most effective ways to save energy and human time, which we believe to be synonymous.
“The Market” has been a demonstration to this community of not only the energy aspects of reuse / repurpose, but the historical sense of place, which promotes the joy of living in one’s community. The building now speaks to the hundreds, if not thousands, of pedestrians and drivers who make daily low speed passes past this building. The sixteen vendors and their employees can also see the marks on the trusses left by the hands that originally built it 120 years ago and have the opportunity to think about why it had not been demolished, and a new building constructed. Instead of building new, perhaps they will be encouraged someday to follow the path of repurposing rather than depurposing. They may learn that it is unnecessary to destroy old buildings.
This project has an ongoing significant educational component, as well as being an economic plus for the general population and the business community. Another sustainable feature is that all repurposed materials were simply cleaned thus revealing their base materials and without using any chemical treatments. All existing interior materials were then left in an unfinished lightly sand-blasted finished state or simply power washed. The exterior was insulated, re-roofed, tuck pointed and sealed.
