pod architecture + design

In West Asheville, a 1930s Bungalow is Repurposed into Three Modern, Stylish Apartments

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Designers/owners fuse authentic historic charm with modern interior architecture to create a multi-family residence befitting its cool community.

Rendering of the restored bungalow by pod architecture + design: History is honored on the exterior…
…but inside, the vibe is thoroughly Modern with open floorplans, cathedral ceilings, high-efficiency appliances, and the warmth of natural wood.

PRESS RELEASE — At 818 Haywood Road in West Asheville, architect Doug Pierson, AIA, LEED AP, BD+C, and experiential designer Youn Choi have completely gutted the two-level, 1930s bungalow there. Now the husband-and-wife team behind the award-winning studio pod architecture + design (pod a+d) in Chapel Hill, is reorganizing, rebuilding, and repurposing the house to accommodate three thoroughly Modern apartments. They call it “Phase 1” of the old bungalow’s rebirth as the stylish Haywood Apartments.

“Phase 1 is about restoring a dilapidated 1930s house on Haywood Road to its original and historic exterior beauty,” Choi pointed out, “and creating modern interiors befitting this hip, up-and-coming neighborhood environment.”

Although the house is on-grade at the front, it becomes two stories at the rear where the slope of the property drops sharply, thus allowing space for three units inside. The largest will have 1275 square feet, the other two one-bedroom units approximately 760 square feet each.

The couple expects construction to be complete in May with tenants moving in by June. And they’re determined to keep to that schedule because Pierson and Choi are not only the architect and interior designers for this project. They’re also the owners, developers, and landscape architects.

From Venice Beach to the Great Smokies

Doug Pierson, Youn Choi

Before Pierson and Choi moved their family of four to Chapel Hill, their personal and professional home base was Los Angeles, California. In L.A., Pierson spent several years working with world-renowned modernist architect Frank Gehry, FAIA, then helped found the award-winning firm “(fer) studios” in Irvine.

Meanwhile, Youn Choi was gaining international recognition as a lead designer for Walt Disney Imagineering and as Design Director for Landmarks, Cityscapes, and Signage & Wayfinding at Selbert Perkins Design in L.A, where she led the environmental design team on such high-profile projects as the Dallas Cowboys Stadium and LAX Airport.

In Venice Beach, the couple designed an innovative and highly published three-level house for their family on a seemingly impossible 700-square-foot lot. After relocating to North Carolina, they kept it as a rental property for several years.

In 2018, the couple purchased another challenging lot in an old, established neighborhood in Carrboro, NC. There, they designed a new house for themselves with a unique modern form inspired by the complexities of their land. “Carrboro Hillside House,” as they call it, also inspired them to let go of their West Coast attachments and focus on living in their new home state. (The firm has projects, however, from coast to coast.) They sold their Venice Beach house and other property in California last year and invested instead in the NC mountains.

“The Most Expressive Neighborhood”

Why Asheville? “Because Asheville is the hub of Western North Carolina,” Pierson explained, “with vibrant art and cultural identities. And West Asheville is the most expressive and intriguing neighborhood in the city, filled with novel restaurants, retro-cool music venues, vintage clothing shops, and great murals.”

They chose the property and bungalow at 818 Haywood Road because “the most sustainable act we, as designers, can do is to keep an existing building and make it better, more energy efficient, more livable, and more amenable to local needs,” he said. “It was always our intention to refurbish and repurpose the house to fit the needs of the community better — where there happens to be a drastic shortage of one-bedroom apartments – and to make that spot along Haywood Road vibrant again.”

Rendering of the bedroom in a lower-level apartment featuring space-saving “barn doors.”

On the exterior, they’re repairing and maintaining the low-pitched gabled roof and the German lap wood siding “all of which is typical of the old bungalows on Haywood Road,” Choi noted. Inside, they’re juxtaposing the original exposed brick with Modern plywood-paneled “cathedral” ceilings and exposed structural steel elements.

C&L Home Improvement LLC of Knightdale, NC, and Suttles Construction Inc. of Henderson County, NC, are the builders for the transformation. Al Sartorelli of Al Sortorelli Real Estate in Asheville is the property manager.

Site Plan including Phase 2.

Urban Infill in Phase 2

Phase 2 of the partners’ West Asheville venture (date TBD) will be to develop and design a new 3500-square-foot, mixed-use “urban infill” building facing Haywood Road “as a contemporary compliment to the richly textured neighborhood,” Pierson said. 

As owners and managers of the property, Pierson and Choi are working under the name “pod enterprises LLC.” Wearing that hat recently, they both smiled. “Right now,” Choi said, “we can’t wait to meet the future residents of the new Haywood Apartments.”

EVENT: T4A @ L&P!

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Network, Nosh, and Sample Locally Crafted Spirits in Downtown Durham Distillery

Liberty & Plenty Distillery and Cocktail Bar | Photos © Tray Thomas.

On Wednesday, November 15, from 5 – 7 p.m., pod architecture + design (pod a+d) partners Doug Pierson, AIA, and Youn Choi, along with owner/master distiller Tina Williford, will co-host a “Thirst4Architecture” social event in Williford’s Liberty & Plenty Distillery & Cocktail Bar at 609 B Foster Street in downtown Durham.

Thirst4Architecture (T4A) “happy hours” are sponsored by NCModernist, the non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and promoting modernist architecture. Hosted by architecture firms and other businesses in the industry, these networking events are free and open to all modernist design enthusiasts in the Triangle, from homeowners, artists and architects to contractors, realtors, interior designers, et al.

Large, roll-up doors invite breezes inside from the Liberty & Plenty porch.

Williford founded Liberty & Plenty in March 2020 as a 100 percent woman-owned craft distillery. During the November 15th event, guests will be able to sample a selection of her unique, small-batch spirits, including vodkas, gins, rums, and whiskies. She will also provide h’ordeuvres and non-alcoholic beverages.

Along with introducing the distillery to T4A participants, the event will spotlight the architectural transformation of a 3400-square-foot, industrial brick warehouse built in 1930 into a fully operational craft spirits distillery fronted by a modern, casually chic Cocktail Bar. To create this conversion, Williford collaborated with pod architecture + design, the Chapel Hill-based firm with award-winning expertise in modern craft distillery and brewery design and one of Blueplate PR‘s exclusive clients.

Doug Pierson, Youn Choi, and Tina Williford will be on hand, happy to discuss the process of bringing Liberty & Plenty to life in downtown Durham.

With Champagne Metal & Linear Light:

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Chapel Hill Design Firm and Louisville Distillery Receive Category’s Top Prize in 2022 Metal News Construction Awards

Rabbit Hole Distillery’s award-winning Tank Expansion Building at night. Designed by pod architecture + design of Chapel Hill, NC., the small structure serves as a lantern after dark for distillery staff and other pedestrians.
(Photos by Youn Choi)

Metal Construction News magazine (MCN), a national trade publication for the metal industry, has announced that the new Tank Expansion Building on Rabbit Hole Distillery’s campus in downtown Louisville, KY, designed by Chapel Hill, NC’s pod architecture + design (pod a+d), has won the 2022 Project Excellence Award for “Metal Walls – New Construction” in MCN’s annual Building & Roofing Awards program. Under the headline “A Jewel in an Alley,” the project is featured in the print and digital versions of Metal Construction News.

In 2018, pod a+d partners and principals Doug Pierson, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, and his wife, experiential designer Youn Choi, completed Rabbit Hole’s original structure: a modern, predominately metal, $15 million, 55,000-square-foot bourbon distillery. Subsequently, Rabbit Hole Distillery became that year’s Grand Award Winner among all the MCN Building & Roofing Awards.

This relatively tiny, 1100-square-foot building became necessary when Rabbit Hole Distillery needed three additional 12,000-gallon fermentation tanks to expand the production of its award-winning bourbon. To produce the structure, Rabbit Hole founder Kaveh Zamanian turned again to the pod a+d husband-and-wife team, aware of the couple’s ability to create meaningful modern architecture at any size.

The Result: Multiple Purposes

Despite the building’s diminutive size and practical function — to house three massive fermentation tanks — Pierson and Choi believed it could perform several purposes if designed accordingly. For example, its location on the center-city campus would turn the building into a welcoming kiosk-like structure at Rabbit Hole’s Market Street entrance.

By day, the distillery’s “rabbit jumping down a hole” logo is a whimsical addition to such a hardworking little building.

It could also contribute to the City of Louisville’s plans to revitalize two historic back streets:  Nanny Goat Strut Alley, adjacent to the building, and Billy Goat Strut Alley, the sites for the city’s annual Bock Beer & Goat Race Festival.

To sustain Zamanian’s quest for architectural transparency throughout the distillery campus, the designers gave the new building huge windows so that passersby can watch the work going on inside.

The next step was to clad the exterior in a colored cement board and then wrap it in 1000 square feet of 1/4-inch-thick, “Champagne Metallic” metal sheets with one-inch holes. To keep the panels consistent, the duo devised “custom panel conditions.” Pierson explained the concept to MCN editor Marcy Marro:

“As we worked through the process, we were able to generalize it so we could have standard details all the way around. That allowed us to have factory edges for the panels, which was really important.” He noted that the long sides of the panels were never cut.

An eye-catching element of this utilitarian structure appears on the elevation facing Nanny Goat Strut Alley: an enormous version of Rabbit Hole’s whimsical logo, which first appeared above the distillery’s main entrance.

“Something Really Special…for the City of Louisville”

By day, the combination of tinted and perforated metal creates an eye-catching duo-toned effect that supports the building’s appearance as a gateway kiosk to the distillery campus. At night, Exterior Linear LED lights illuminate the exterior walls from behind so that the little building glows like a lantern to light the way for city pedestrians and Rabbit Hole staff.

“Wherever we have a perforated metal seam, we have a very thin concealed light that backlights the cavity, so the perforation holes create the glowing effect,” Pierson told MCN.

Choi added, “We wanted the building to brighten up the context and celebrate the history there.”

Pierson smiled. “Our goal was to create something really special and really interesting for the City of Louisville.”

In declaring the Tank Expansion Building as the best of its category, the MCN design jury seems to suggest “mission accomplished.”

*       *       *

Published by Modern Trade Communications, Metal Construction News is the leading authority on the use of metal in architectural applications and building design. All of 2022’s award-winning projects are featured in MCN’s December digital and print editions.

Click here for information on pod architecture + design.

Click here for additional photos and specific information on the Tank Expansion Building.

Click here for photos and further details about the Rabbit Hole Distillery.

Architect, Developer Reveal Plans for Boutique Community Hotel in Louisville to Serve Residents and Travels Alike

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Rendering of the future Devonian, designed by pod architecture + design

Blueplate PR client pod architecture + design (pod a+d), an award-winning design firm in Chapel Hill, NC, together with visionary real estate developer Gill Holland of Louisville, Kentucky, recently revealed plans for “The Devonian,” a 17,000-square-foot, post-pandemic, community hotel at 1614-24 Lytle Street in Louisville’s historic Portland neighborhood designed to serve local residents as well as travelers.

Unlike standard hotels and motels whose amenities are strictly for paying guests, Holland’s hospitality venture aims to include the Portland and greater Louisville area with indoor/outdoor spaces for community and special events. Along with the 25 small guest rooms, the Devonian will offer a heated courtyard swimming pool, a rooftop deck where Portland-based non-profits can host fundraisers, and easy access to the Louisville Visual Arts gallery next door, the University of Louisville Hite Art Institute, and live music and more at “fifteenTWELVE,” a creative compound on Portland Avenue.  Also, The Devonian will be a block from the heralded Table Café, one block from the Waterfront Phase IV (being built now), and less than two miles from Norton Healthcare Sports and Learning Center. 

“It’s crazy that there is not one hotel west of Ninth Street in Louisville, an area that, on its own, would be the fourth largest city in the state of Kentucky,” Holland said. “We typically do not announce any projects or partnerships until we have found the financing, but we need to find partners both to get this built and to operate it. So, we wanted to get the word out now that the permitting has been approved.”

Rendering, The Devonian, looking east.

Like most motels and motor lodges along the nation’s highways, The Devonian’s rooms will have open-air access rather than interior hallways, and an open, accessible lobby. Rooms overlooking the pool will face inward to provide privacy for guests and adjacent neighbors.

Established in 1811, Portland is an urban neighborhood northwest of downtown Louisville, located on the Falls of the Ohio River. Fossils discovered at the Falls date back 400 million years to the geological Devonian Period, an interval of the Paleozoic Era. Holland named his new-concept hotel “The Devonian” to honor that source of neighborhood pride.

Following Holland’s lead, pod a+d partners Douglas Pierson, AIA, and designer Youn Choi used abstractions of the fossil forms found in the area to establish tectonic geometries in the building itself: The exposed structure will feature geometric shapes and patterns visible in the corals discovered in the Ohio River’s limestone bed. 

The exposed structure will feature geometric shapes and patterns visible in the corals discovered in the Ohio River’s limestone bed. 

The Devonian’s specific context is also reflected in the architecture. Located at the threshold between Portland’s iconic warehouse/commercial district to the east and residential neighborhoods to the west, the building’s rugged modernist form, devoid of ornamentation, suggests the raw feel of an industrial warehouse while the glass-enclosed lobby and open roof deck recall porches and breezeways among Portland’s historic homes.

“The Devonian is a neighborhood compass that navigates regional pulls,” said Choi. “To the east, it focuses its view on the historic commercial streets and buildings. To the West, it is a landmark that acknowledges the transition from commercial to residential. To the North, it recognizes its pre-historic era. And to the South, it is an axis to placemaking spaces that are emerging in West Louisville neighborhoods.” 

Doug Pierson and Gill Holland have worked together on other projects over the years, most notably The Green Building, a nationally acclaimed, thoroughly sustainable mixed-use commercial project in downtown Louisville that brought community pride back to a forgotten section of that city. The designers and developer hope The Devonian will do the same for the Portland community.       

When financing is secured, Holland says construction should begin next spring.

For more information on pod architecture + design, visit www.podand.com.

Carrboro Hillside House Wins a Jury Award in 2022 Matsumoto Prize Competition

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Hillside House, designed by pod architecture + design, in neighborhood context.

(CARRBORO, NC) – “Hillside House,” the modern, metal-clad home designed by architect Doug Pierson, AIA, and designer Youn Choi of pod architecture + design for their own family of four, received a prestigious Jury Award during the 2022 George Matsumoto Prize competition recognizing excellence in modernist residential design.

 Leland Little Auctions in Hillsborough hosted this year’s awards ceremony on Thursday, July 28.

NC Modernist, a nationally acclaimed non-profit organization and website based and maintained in Durham, created the Matsumoto Prize in 2012 to honor modernist architect George Matsumoto, FAIA, one of the founding faculty members of North Carolina State University’s College of Design. The Matsumoto Prize is North Carolina’s highest honor exclusively for modernist residential architecture throughout the state.

Located on a wooded lot in an established neighborhood near downtown Carrboro, Hillside House is a long, slender, three-level home that directly responds to the natural terrain in form and plan. Its black metal exterior and a cantilevered corner as it zigzags up a steep hill decrease its impact on the landscape and natural hydrology.

No alt text provided for this image
Doug Pierson, Youn Choi

According to NC Modernist’s founder and director George Smart, the jurors appreciated the symbiosis between the architecture and the land. Yet they were most impressed by Pierson’s and Choi’s design decisions that, as parents, they knew would enhance daily life for their young-adult child with autism. As they explained in their awards submission:

 “An ideal floor plan developed within the long, narrow form…[that] offers visible connectivity across the length and height of the house to facilitate communication. It also provides retreat spaces for privacy.”

 Info, Video, Images & Plans

·       Click here to view the video pod a+d created for the competition, narrated by Doug Pierson.

·       Click here for more information on pod architecture + design, and here for information, photos, drawings, and plans for Hillside House.

·       Click here to view all the modernist houses submitted for the Matsumoto Prize this year.

Vote for the CARRBORO HILLSIDE HOUSE in this year’s Matsumoto Prize awards!

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Go to ncmhcompetitions.org, scroll down a bit, and VOTE for this unique, modern, sustainable, custom-designed home in Carrboro, NC, where the land dictated the form and the family’s specific needs informed the plan. Thanks so much!

Blueplate PR Client’s Project Featured in Metal Architecture magazine.

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pod architecture + design’s “Hillside House” gets national press.

Abundant glazing provides views of the wooded site from every room. (Photo by Allen Weiss)

by Christopher Brinkerhoff, Associate Editor

Zig zagging down a hillside in Carrboro, N.C., a black-clad house blends into a wooded site. The home is the vision of partners and design duo Douglas Pierson and Youn Choi, pod architecture + design PLLC, Chapel Hill, N.C.

The house comprises three forms that are connected. At their simplest, they are rectangles that connect to form a Z pattern, descending the slope of the hill toward a creek.

Corrugated metal panels give texture to the lengthy façades that are punctured by horizontal windows, which emphasize their length. To keep the lines clean, the architects specified limited trim.

Two Appearances

The home blends in with other houses in the neighborhood in terms of size and scale, but because of the slope, the two lower forms disappear from the street view. The buildable area on the hillside site was limited to a triangular, northeast corner of the site. Instead of facing the streetside to the east, the house faces the creek bed to the southwest. READ MORE

Eater Carolinas magazine names new-concept wine shop designed by pod architecture + design as one of “14 Most Anticipated…”

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Exterior rendering of Rocks & Acid wine shop & tasting bar, coming to 712 Market Street in Chapel Hill, designed by pod architecture + design. Counter service via a large window by the patio (pictured here) will lend a casual, informal air to the new-concept shop.

Rocks & Acid, a new retail wine shop and tasting room coming this year to Chapel Hill’s Southern Village neighborhood, is one of “The 14 Most Anticipated Restaurants Across the Carolinas for 2022,” according to Eater Carolinas digital magazine.

While the name doesn’t say it, food will play a key role in owner Paula de Pano’s desire to have her customers relax and linger at Rocks & Acid. To that end, pod architecture + design included a large pass-through window at the shop’s exterior patio in their design. A “curated selection of artisan cheeses, charcuterie, conservas, caviar and cakes” will be available at the window and interior wine bar, according to JNK Public Relations.

CLICK HERE to go to Eater Carolinas to see the complete list.

CLICK HERE for more information on pod a+d‘s design for Rocks & Acid.

 

Inhabitat.com: “Carrboro Hillside House looks like a giant black snake”

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Designed by Blueplate PR client pod architecture + design

The driveway concludes at the main entrance underneath Hillside House.

by KC Morgan for Inhabitat.com

The location is tucked into a protected forested area covered in trees with a creek nearby. It’s an odd-shaped lot with a hillside and boulders, surrounded by nature. It was a huge challenge for architect Doug Pierson and designer Youn Choi, but the end result is absolutely stunning. READ MORE

Global Design Platform Features Project by Blueplate PR Client pod architecture + design

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Archello.com selects Rabbit Hole Distillery

Natural wood strikes a warm note around Rabbit Hole’s public courtyard. Blackened wood louvers around the manufacturing atrium are a nod to the charred wood barrels that give bourbon a smooth, mellow flavor.

For this unique facility — a modern structure in an industry steeped in tradition — the design team embraced the strategy “form follows process,” allowing the building to take shape in response to the bourbon production process it would house. The result: a distinctive, responsive building that shares its design and purpose equally with the building’s capacious copper and steel equipment.

Taking a cue from Louis Kahn’s Salt Institute, the overall form is divided into “service” (warehouse) and “served” (atrium and event space) volumes.  A public passageway navigates between the two without intruding on either before it ascends, on a meandering path, through the 60-foot-tall Manufacturing Atrium enclosed by glass and blackened wood louvres.  The path continuesover the fermentation tanks, around the 48-foot-tall copper still, and on to “Overlook,” the 150-seat event space.

Throughout the interior journey, the gleaming still is always in view, underscoring the notion of the building as an homage to the craft of bourbon making. READ MORE and VIEW PHOTO GALLERY.

Inside the transparent manufacturing atrium. The 48-foot-tall copper still rises in the background.