[au]workshop is pleased to help support the Museum of Art Fort Collins by participating in the 20th anniversary masks fundraiser and exhibition. [au]workshop architect Anne Nelsen created Sebastian, the firm’s anthropomorphic contribution to the exhibition.

Sebastian began with a desire to display only the most attractive angle of the mask and to conceal (to mask!) the rest. Anne felt that a mask is most powerful when it is accompanied by someone—when it is given life or context by its wearer.  Thus, Sebastian took on his present larger than life, human-like form and stands in contrapposto.  Like all of us from time to time, the texture of his exterior strongly contrasts with the texture of his interior; that is, he is not how he appears at first. Sebastian thinks this only makes him more interesting.

Info & Links

Come visit Sebastian and see the rest of the entries at the Museum of Art Fort Collins. The exhibit will be open April 5th – June 7th, 2024. Everyone has the option to bid on any of the masks online. See the link here.

Thank you to MoA for inviting us to participate!

Follow their socials to stay up to date on MoA’s current events!

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About Historic Preservation Commission

The commission’s role in the local government is to connect the people with the history they are living in.  They help determine historic landmarks and how to best preserve them in way that is beneficial to the community.

Anne Nelsen

As a community-rooted firm, [au]workshop places great importance on active engagement with local organizations. We encourage our staff to participate in areas aligned with their passions.  As she completes her second and final term this March, we’d like to say thank you to Anne Nelsen for her time on the City of Fort Collins Historic Preservation Commission. She served on the commission for 6 years and always went above and beyond in her role.

As a practicing architect with experience in historic buildings, Anne brought a unique and informed perspective to the projects she reviewed during her tenure.   

She continues to be an advocate for preservation and adaptive reuse in the community, as well as a proponent for widening the lens of our local history.

Get involved!

Getting involved in local government is a great way to get connected with communities and learn more about the people and places around you.

There are many ways of getting involved. You can do something as simple as receiving e-mail notifications about current events and news from your city to joining a commission/committee yourself!  

Links

City of Fort Collins email subscription and list of committees.

https://www.fcgov.com/cityclerk/boards/

City of Fort Collins Social Media pages.

https://www.facebook.com/fortcollinsgov

https://www.instagram.com/fortcollinsgov

Happy New Year from our workshop to yours!

2023 was full of projects near and far, new collaborations, and innovative urban housing schemes. Looking forward to what 2024 will bring!

We are pleased to share that one of our Habitat for Humanity projects, Lomita Homes, is included in the second edition of Designed for Habitat: New Directions for Habitat for Humanity by Auburn University professors David Hinson and Justin Miller.

Twelve design-forward Habitat for Humanity projects including the Lomita Homes were highlighted based on approaches to building scale, construction technology, energy and affordability, design and context. 

It is great to have our project chronicled alongside many other great design teams with likeminded passion for designing Habitat housing.

Our recent 10-year anniversary party provided the perfect opportunity to celebrate significant milestones achieved with our clients and collaborators!

We shared stories:  Overcoming challenges, Celebrating victories, and Embracing growth. There was laughter and even a few tears (just kidding—those were early-June raindrops!).

Thank you to everyone who joined us and enjoyed a bit of nosh, beer from our neighbors at Hello Brew Company and super-fun music by The McDailey Trio!

THANK YOU to our clients, collaborators and especially our [au]workshop staff for making the past ten years a terrific journey!

Happy New Year from our workshop to yours!  2022 was full of fun and interesting projects,

like this sketch study for an addition to an historic Colorado home. We're grateful to all of you

for your continued support and collaboration.  Wishing you all the best in 2023!

The Poudre Garage, Confluence Fort Collins, and the Butterfly Café, all designed by [au]workshop architects+urbanists have been selected as Fort Collins Urban Design Award winners for 2022 in a juried competition organized by the City of Fort Collins that tapped 11 projects in various categories from a field of 40 entries.

Every second or third year, The City of Fort Collins celebrates great places and people who design them in a process that promotes awareness of urban design and its importance for the quality of life in the community. According to the organizers, “Urban design ranges from a city or city subarea to a single outdoor space and considers the look and feel, as well as environmental, economic and social consequences of design. It is not simply concerned with new development but also with the maintenance and enhancement of existing development”.

“We are delighted to be presented these awards for work that represents the heart and soul of our design focus: Architecture that thoughtfully addresses the street, neighborhood and scale of the skyline in established urban neighborhoods”, said Randy Shortridge AIA, the design principal at [au]workshop.

The selection process starts with a call for entries and ends with a committee made up of local designers, city board members, and city staff selecting winners from the applications. The process culminates this year with an awards ceremony on September 8 at the Lincoln Center in Fort Collins.

“All three of these buildings respond to neighboring historic structures or are valuable themselves locally historic. Scale, rhythms, proportions and selected finish materials are all important when designing in the urban context.” added Jason Kersley AIA, [au]workshop’s managing principal for all three award winning projects.

The Architecture category seeks, “a built building or group of buildings that...achieve design excellence through unique relationships with immediate surroundings because of the site, massing, architecture and pedestrian amenities.” according to the city’s website. Both The Poudre Garage and Confluence Fort Collins were selected as Architecture honorees.

The Poudre Garage, developed by Tricia and David Diehl, is a renovation of and addition to a historic U.S. Forest Service garage and the addition takes its design cues from the art-deco styling of the original building while carefully respecting its historic neighbors and maximizing a highly constrained site.

Confluence Fort Collins, a mixed-use building with several commercial and 26 residential units is located at the center of what was once the parade ground for Fort Collins' namesake military outpost. Co-developed by Saunders Development and [space]foundry, Confluence strives in every way to live up to its site's historic context: Sandwiched between three historically eligible properties, with a fourth across the street, particular attention was paid to the project's massing and architectural details, stepping down and setting back in a number of locations in deference to the existing properties.

In the Urban Fragments category where winners should be “a small-scale piece of a building or landscape that contributes significantly to the quality of the public realm,” The Butterfly Café was selected as an honoree.

The Butterfly Café, a 400 square foot former Poudre Valley Creamery “dairy lab” now owned by the City of Fort Collins, was moved 100 feet east to accommodate a new city building and completely renovated to accommodate a café with both indoor and outdoor seating. The mid- century “Googie” style building characterized by its geometric masonry, upswept roof and large expanses of glass is topped by a new sign similar to the original with bold colors and graphics reflecting its new use.

Design Principal, Randy Shortridge, AIA was recently interviewed by the Fort Collins Coloradoan about a concept [au]workshop has proposed to convert what is now an oversized downtown street with an unused center median into a new pedestrian plaza for a variety of activities, additional landscape, lots of seating, a water feature, locations for civic-scaled art and a pavilion. Our concept also simplifies one of downtown’s most complex vehicular intersections and creates a stronger walkable link between downtown and the Civic Center.

See the Coloradoan article linked here.

Thank you to Architectural Digest for including our design in your article on Hawaii’s most luxurious property developments. See the full article here.

Anne Nelsen

40 Under Forty Honoree

We are proud to share that [au]workshop architect Anne Nelsen has received BizWest’s Northern Colorado’s 40 under Forty award!

Northern Colorado’s 40 under Forty recognizes those who represent the best and brightest of emerging leaders that make a difference in their companies, industries, and the community; Anne has absolutely achieved this.

In addition to her role as Workshop Architect at our firm, Anne serves on the Fort Collins’ Historic Preservation Commission and on the Housing Catalyst Development Committee.  She is also a member of the Colorado Green Building Guild and has volunteered with Respite Care and Book Trust - two amazing Fort Collins-grown organizations.

Anne shared in her interview with BizWest, “My desire to deepen my knowledge through diverse work has been met with tremendous enthusiasm from [au]workshop and I have grown with the support of the firm’s principals. In turn, I strive to mentor my younger colleagues.”

View of Poudre Garage looking west across downtown Fort Collins, to Horsetooth Mountain.

““They managed to design a brand new wing honoring the historic portion and its origin. We are truly pleased with how the project turned out. This building is not only an investment but it is also our personal office. It is a delight to work in such a beautiful space and we get compliments on it from clients all the time.””

— Tricia Diehl, Project Manager and co-owner

The Poudre Garage, a renovation and addition to an historic U.S. Forest Service garage building originally built in 1936-37, has received the Downtown Colorado Inc. (DCI) Governor’s Award for Downtown Excellence during a virtual conference event held last week.

The Governor’s Award recognizes exemplary commitment to the formation of projects which enhance and encourage the integrity and potential of an area. Winning projects positively impact the local community through commitment to the downtown, larger plan of the community, and overall culture and nature of the community where it resides.

[au]workshop are quite pleased that DCI recognized the extra effort that was taken to make the Poudre Garage a great addition to the street, the neighborhood and downtown Fort Collins.

We strove to make the addition compatible with the original building and context without imitating the existing materials and style.

The original building was built as a Forest Service supervisor’s warehouse, combining administrative and vehicle maintenance functions. As the building aged and USFS needs changed, it underwent a series of modifications. The art-deco garage doors were replaced with fixed glazing, and other openings were filled when the USFS converted the building to office uses, before selling the property in 1995. Various alterations made the building ineligible for the National Register, yet it retained the majority of its historic character and was designated a local landmark in 1997.

The Poudre Garage addition takes its design cues from the art-deco styling, existing massing, and materiality of the original building, carefully acknowledging its historic neighbors while optimizing a highly constrained urban infill site. A symmetrical art-deco-inspired design concept helps the addition remain compatible with the original garage, while using contemporary materials and detailing to avoid imitation and distinguish itself from the historic construction.

The project adds six loft-style apartment units to the site, increasing the neighborhood’s sense of security and walkability, and replaces existing surface parking with concealed spaces. The roof of the historic building is utilized as exterior living areas for the units, activating the building facade.

We worked closely with the client throughout the process, as the building was, and remains, the home of their business. The ground level interior was reconfigured for office and commercial uses, including the client’s offices, that activate the street. The exterior of the historic garage was also restored, with non-original storefront replaced with glazed garage-style doors that provide a hint of its former use, while increasing transparency and porosity.

The Poudre Garage also recently received a design Award of Distinction from the Colorado Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

You can see additional images at the project page, and view the awards submission here.

View along Remington street, with restored sconces and new overhead storefront doors visible.