This adaptive reuse project turns the typical corporate office space on its head. Instead of hiding the work process behind closed doors and private spaces, Neoera and the owners of NINE dot ARTS sought instead to highlight these functions by making them fundamental components of the design concept. NINE dot ARTS is a growing organization which provides art curatorial services to corporations and public entities. They bought a 6,500 SF building In Denver’s LoHi neighborhood, which appeared to be a dated concrete block shell of a building, with an interior in dire need of reorganization. Through extensive interviews and visioning sessions in the Programming phase, Neoera developed a shared vision with NINE dot ARTS staff to confront the occupier and visitor with art and its journey from being unloaded into the building and into and throughout the interior landscape. These parameters were defined early and utilized as a means to constantly challenge our programming. To do this, we flipped the normal convention of keeping the main entrance near the street and moved it towards the rear of the building. We accentuated this entry with an oversized ramp that performs as a loading area, client entrance and urban outdoor court. We continued this narrative by moving the client from the reception area to the main presentation room through the large art storage and packaging area. The office culture is equally important to the company – happy curators equal happy clients and happy spaces. So we housed the employee’s workstations on the long, largely exposed south-facing side of the building for premium natural light. We reconfigured and relocated existing stall bathrooms into four separate unisex bathrooms for more privacy and created a locker room with vanity and dressing area in the center. Lastly, we built a spacious, open kitchen, complete with high community tables and a lounge space. In the corner of this gathering space, we created a cozy built-in tiered platform with a commissioned over-sized knit enclosure to fulfill the relaxation needs of the staff. We maintained a neutral finish palette and optimized natural and artificial lighting to showcase art throughout. To highlight the utility and “honest” nature of NINE dot ARTS’ workspace, our project team decided to highlight the building’s layered history by removing the 18” wood joist floor and revealing the original concrete floor; exposing the imperfect concrete block walls and unpainted steel structure. We introduced plywood shelving to emphasize art storage, introduced solar tube daylighting in the main presentation space and enlarged the main reception/loading area entrance by designing an overhead glass door into the south facade.