The building is located at the far end of the Alliance downtown historic district, near The University of Mount Union. In it’s heyday, it consisted of 10 apartments and two small storefronts. Long since past this moment, one facade is not repairable and required rebuilding. Many structural elements have failed, including an entire wood framed portion of the building. A garage which fronts the rear alley has lost it’s roof and masonry walls are in distress.

The project can be broken into three primary components, the historic, which includes two storefronts and eight new apartments, wood framed portion of the building, which will be re-built and the garage, which will be repurposed as a patio for residence and outdoor dining area.

New concrete masonry walls, small addition housing four apartments, and a pair of egress stairs are clearly contemporary. Beyond this, the old and new merge. Egress corridors introduce historic style pendant lighting and floors. Apartments are each unique with defining features of the historic apertures dappled with clean lines and an occasional folly of historic inspired pattern. Lighting, similar to in the corridors, is almost arbitrarily placed throughout, as if an old wire was repurposed.

The final concept is the result of melding contemporary interventions with historic, switching between the two frequently with some ambiguity. This creates a complex dialogue of two woven languages, not relying on the modern trope of distinction being the only solution. Here the two languages merge to create a cohesive experience.