but they put the broader success of the group before their individual needs. Most of the owners hadn’t done anything like this before, so we dealt with various skillsets and life experiences that came together around this common idea of making a community— a place that mattered.” Charlie Wilson, project manager with CT
PHOTO: CLAIRE HASLAM AND DOUG WILLIAMS
The abandoned textile mill essentially was one building that had been en- larged over time. It had no courtyards or interstitial spaces. According to Fred Belledin, AIA, the mill was “one large, kind of lumpy, dark box.”
Wilson Construction, Durham, N.C., adds: “Different people aren’t always going to have the same opinion. There was a lot of time and effort on decisions, so everybody felt like it was fair for the group and project as a whole. Obviously, there was a lot of compromise involved, but I think it worked well. They started this project as friends, and they’re all still friends.”
Design and Construction The design began with a number of infor- mal meetings. Alphin; Belledin; and Chris Johnson, project architect for Clearscapes, would meet the ownership team at the upper mill and discuss ideas. Each team member was involved in choosing where his and/or her business would take shape inside the expansive, empty mill space. In fact, some businesses were better suited to certain areas of the mill than others. “The upper mill was a collection of mid-
century buildings that had been expanded over time. It was built with, frankly, what- ever material was least costly at the time,” Belledin notes. “The upside is because each building was built differently, each space
has its own personality. The pub, which was designed to be warm and cozy, is in a space with a lot of wood as opposed to the Haw River Ballroom, which is more like a warehouse and is in a space with a lot of steel trusses. Because all the spaces are of generally the same vintage, the patina of time has a way of softening the differences and tying them all together.” Wilson has a lot of experience renovat-
ing abandoned mills and says they’re easily adaptable to any space desired. “The nice thing about mills is they’re just big open spaces. They’re all brick exterior walls and heavy-timber columns and beading and hardwood floors.” However, the project was not without
challenges, a couple of which arose because of the upper mill’s era and its former program. “Because the mill was built in the mid-1900s when air conditioning already existed, the building was windowless,” Belledin says. “From the exterior it was a big, characterless brick box.” In addition, the mill consisted of unrein-
forced masonry walls with very little lateral load resistance. “They’re great warehouses; you can stack lots of heavy things up and they perform beautifully,” Belledin adds. “However, when you’re repurposing them as assembly spaces in which you’re putting lots of people, you need to meet current structural codes. We introduced a new structural system around the perimeter to meet the current code requirements.” (continues on page 26)