Timber Renewal

Stoic, sturdy, and anchoring - The industrial past is not so distant that our present is without its calming graces. Buildings like the Leon Electric warehouse are often rooted in our neighborhoods and communities long before we are and shape a collective image of our lives as we engage with them. They are backdrops for our human experience that persist while time carries us with it.

Leon Electric harbors embodied energy that was used to propel us forward in our industrial and economic pursuits, but in turn furthered our global carbon debt. An architectural conversation emerges in the transformation of the building’s renewal by utilizing Mass Timber.

The new construction aims to lower the project’s Global Warming Potential as the timber will be FSC-certified, ensuring that it sequesters more carbon than is used to transport, mill, and construct it. CLT planks and Glu-Lam beams will be craned surgically into place. The outer concrete columns are coupled with a Glu-Lam column, leaving the evidence of selective demolition on display.

This strategy engages Dudley Street with the building’s retail and access to the Fairmount Line. The resulting performance, flex, and community space on the upper floors are supported by the hybrid structure, with timber slipping behind the shell and emerging as a beacon on top of the existing structure, bringing light deep into the tight spaces.

Sustainable human progress relies on directed inertia. With this proposal’s strategies, this inertia becomes focused into Upham’s Corner, but not at the expense of our planet.