Cellar Area Reinvented

Conceptual drawing for the cellar area, a 180 SF space that is adjacent to the restaurant and 12 feet bellow street level.

Sketch with water feature on furthest brick wall.

The Many Faces of the Palace Hotel

The Palace Hotel in Ukiah has gone through many face transformations throughout the years.

From the 1890s to 1950s, the facade of the building was constantly being painted, pushed and pulled, and added to in the name of modernization and being up to date.  Around 1917, an addition was added to the back of the hotel that extended to School Street, equipped with modern conveniences such as steam heating, flush toilets, and electrical wiring.  The concrete addition in the late 1920s brought in a car garage to accommodate the growing popularity of automobiles. In the early 1920s the facade was modernized with a slick covering over the brick and the ornate balcony was replaced with a simple awning.  The facade received further modernization when the first floor was recessed back slightly and the cast iron columns were boxed in and covered from sight.  Through these 60 years there is the trend of stripping the building of ornament and detail and slimming it down to it's basic components, aligning with the architectural ideals of the time.

It's interesting that now, in the 21st century, we are pushing into an increasingly technological society, and sometimes it seems as if we have lost control of our dependence on modern conveniences.  In reaction to this I think that there is a movement to grab hold of values of the past, or to the remnants of a more simple life.  Because of this historic renovations have more value than ever.  Although we have the technology to cover the building in a glass bubble or transform it into futuristic steel contraption, we will not do this because we appreciate the value of it's original design. The final face transformation of the hotel, hopefully, will rewind the dial back 120 years.

Vision for the future facade at the Palace.

Winter Ready

The 18,000 SF roof is now completely covered with a 10-mil black polyethylene, to protect the building from further water damage during the rainy season.

A Welcome Discovery

This week during debris removal, a row of 15-foot cast iron columns were discovered within the front wall of the building.

The 11 columns support a concrete beam, which supports 45 feet of brick wall above.
 These columns are a welcome discovery because not only they are they elegantly and beautifully designed but they also add more structural integrity to the brick portion of the building.

According to old photographs, the columns were boxed in within the facade sometime after the 1920s, and over time the front section of the building was pushed out and the two entries were recessed in.  This photo of the Hotel from the 1910s shows the columns exposed to the street (highlighted in red.) 

A plaque at the corner of the building announces that the columns were made by O’Connell & Lewis, a popular and reputable iron business in San Francisco during the late 19th century.  

Plaque says "Architecture Iron Works,
O'Connel & Lewis, 238 Steward Street, SF"

Cast iron columns were popular in the late 1800s because they were a quick and efficient, non-combustive material.  Also because of their compressive strength they allowed front facades to be opened up with large windows, letting in natural daylight.  The columns could be made from a mold in a factory and then shipped to a site with little onsite labor.  These cast iron columns are a prominent example of prefabrication and mass production, ideas that were just blossoming when the Palace was built.

For the renovation we aim to bring the facade of the 1891 building as close to its original state as possible, which would include pushing the first floor facade back a few feet to expose the columns once again, and replicating the original window and door placements of the first floor.  This will not be an easy task, but it will be worth it in the end because it will open up the columns to the street and will preserve an aesthetic and ideal of an era that has passed.  

These are a few of my favorite things

I've been shifting through images that have caught my eye through the past few years to find inspiration for the atrium space:

(The buildings are: Heartland Community Church by 360 Architects, Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry by Chartier Corbrasson Architects, a private house by Norm Hudson in Tiburon, and Erickson Fine Art Gallery in Healdsburg)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Here is some Photoshoping magic in honor of this spooky holiday:

But in all seriousness, a building with 100 years of history is bound to have its mysteries.  From Black Bart’s alleged stay at the hotel to Clover Lavina Young who was born in the hotel in 1912, to a mysterious girl posing in a Polaroid, the building is simply seeped in stories.  The beauty of a building so old is that the life and memories of all of its previous inhabitants are embedded within its walls, and you can feel them when you walk through its hallways. 

This polaroid found in the hotel during the renovation is one of my favorite
"artifacts" to reinvent stories about.  

In 2012 a group of ghost hunters from a SciFi TV show came to the hotel to search out any paranormal activity.  Although they didn't get much evidence besides the beeping of their “ghost meter,” one thing they kept repeating as they walked through the hallways was that the memories and stories within the building were evidently palpable.

This sense of past life and memories can’t be produced artificially, and it is what makes the Palace truly unique.  I think we have the chance now to reinvent them and bring them back to life with our own imaginations, through a Black Bart room, artwork depicting scenes from the old west, displaying old Polaroids and artifacts of the building, and restoring the original materials and layout.  

A Better Mindset

When renovating an existing building, I’m learning that it’s important to find the hidden potential in problematic areas.  Rather than fighting against the quirks of the previous design you have to put down your boxing gloves and work with it to create something even better and more unique. 

Atrium space in the Palace Hotel

The atrium space at the Hotel could be thought of as a quirk.   Many architects now would reject this atrium layout because it doesn’t use space efficiently and units with windows facing an atrium are considered undesirable.  But at the time (in the late 1920s) an atrium was a viable solution because the palace was expanding quickly with a large, new concrete addition and small, cheap hotel rooms with some natural light were needed. 

In taking up a new mindset I need to think, “How can we make the atrium a space where people want to be?”  This 100'x20’ rectangle could be a potential for some really awesome outdoor-indoor space, with fountains, walking paths, gardens, green walls, plants, benches, fire pits, a volleyball court, etc.  It could become the focal point for activity in the condo units, kind of a semi-private mini park that the residents of the Palace can enjoy.

Sketches showing potential re-use of atrium space.

Cherem-serrano-arquitectos recently renovated a 17^th century hotel in Mexico City, and I think they did a great job of making the most of their atrium with space for seating, a green wall, and an operable canvas roof.

Downtown Mexico Hotel atrium.

I think that at the Palace Hotel we have the opportunity to do the same.  Or better :)