CREJ

/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / DECEMBER 2017

ELEMENTS

Function & Form

James Florio Photography

The building’s base, created from shipping contain-

ers, sets the boundary for the building, which is then

wrapped with a pre-engineered metal building. Con-

tinuous ribbon windows on the second level allow

light to penetrate through the office spaces in the

interior bullpen.

n February, Bryce

Ballew

proud-

ly opened the

doors of the first Col-

orado-based

co-working

space exclusively dedicated

to serving the Front Range AEC

industry. Located at 6145 Broad-

way in Denver’s Broadway Estates

neighborhood, Tradecraft Industries

is headquartered in a newly construct-

ed 19,000-square-foot industrial space

designed in collaboration with me, and

my design team at Roth Sheppard Archi-

tects. With 20 private offices and over 200

rentable, flexible co-working memberships

for small and start-up construction companies

and design firms, this collaborative environment

provides a place where contractors can organically

grow and support one another.

Bryce, a former project manager for Jordy Con-

struction, now heads up his own contracting firm,

Construction Inc., in addition to overseeing Trade-

craft Industries. But this project was unlike any-

thing he’s collaborated on in the past.

We chose to approach it as a puzzle of sorts – an

analytical challenge that would result in a co-work-

ing space that physically manifests the construc-

tion worldview Bryce and his clients are mired in

every day. To accomplish this, we chose to focus on

selecting multiple-use building components and

materials that would not only allow us to save time

and money, but offer flexibility and streamline

construction.

Turning a well-known design idiom on its head,

we joked that this project was more about “func-

tion follows form” than the other way around. And

while our choices and solutions didn't necessarily

take less time to plan and design, the end result was

far more intelligent and cohesive overall, which is

what makes this an interesting story.

Rather than share a straightforward design over-

view about yet another co-working space opening

in Denver, we thought our peers would be more in-

terested in what we learned along the way, and why

we made the choices we did.

Case in point: As we began to explore ideas, we

kept coming back to shipping containers, but want-

ed to approach them using a different strategy.

Rather than try to turn the containers into some-

thing they are not meant to be (as most builders

and architects do today), we wanted our design to

be guided by more thoughtful questions like: How

close is our use of this building component to its

original intent? Are we using shipping containers

for their best use within the building as well as

without? Is our approach truly intentional, or are

we trying to be trendy?

Ultimately, after determining that shipping con-

tainers were the right way to go, everything from

the building dimensions to the mezzanine, offic-

es and conference rooms were derived from their

standard measurements. Bryce explained, “We

wanted to use containers to maximize their unique

and inherent structural capabilities rather than

transform them into something they were never

designed to be. Using them as secure material and

equipment storage for our members started what

would be a focal structural element of the design.”

We applied this analytical approach with oth-

er materials as well. For example, after exploring

many different options, we chose Polygal panel-

ing attached directly to studs for the interior of-

fice walls. This choice not only allows light to filter

Adam Harding

Partner, Roth

Sheppard

Architects

Function Follows Form in AEC Co-Working Space

Roth Sheppard Architects

Tradecraft’s shipping container base is stackedwith office space

then wrapped in a pre-engineered metal building above that.