Photo: Fisher Architecture, Fly over properties
Metal cladding and other metal building materials made a residential adaptive reuse project possible for a private house. The owners call it River House, as it is located above the Allegheny River.
An existing ground-floor distillery with a one-story living space above it was built in the 1920s. Fisher ARCHitecture designed a house that preserved the building’s concrete block base, which has thick walls and steel windows. The dilapidated wood, one-story structure above was replaced with a new structure. A structural steel frame sets on the existing block wall and supports the garage, with its slab on metal deck, and a steel bridge that connects the building to the street.
Approximately 950 square feet of the existing building was demolished, 1,131 square feet were reused and 1,786 square feet were added to the house, making the house about 2,900 finished square feet. Eric Fisher, AIA, LEED AP, principal at Fisher ARCHitecture, says, “Metal permitted us to reinforce the existing structure so it could take on the load of the new addition and it allowed us to push the design to the maximum possible extent.”
At the street side of the house, Fisher ARCHitecture added a rainscreen scrim with storefront system pressure plates and covers. “We created a unique exterior wall covering by repurposing a storefront snap-cap system into an affordable rainscreen system that resembles wood slats,” Fisher says. “It’s a design hack!”
At the front entrance, Fisher ARCHitecture designed a steel canopy clad with corrugated polycarbonate for shading. Keystone Metals Inc. supplied the canopy, steel frame, bridge and railings.
On the exterior of the upper volume and on the street side of the lower volume of the house, Fisher ARCHitecture specified weathering steel panels. “We clad the new building volumes in Corten steel providing a colorful, tough, industrial look that relates to Pittsburgh’s storied past,” Fisher says.
Another big move for the adaptive reuse project was designing the driveway. The building is on a site with a steep slope, so rebuilding the existing driveway to meet contemporary standards was cost prohibitive, Fisher says. “As a result, we designed a steel framed bridge with metal grating that would allow the owners to park on the project’s third floor, which is level with the street.”
To construct the rainscreen scrim, Cummings Construction installed 1,060 square feet of Kawneer Co. Inc.’s 2 1/2-inch by 5/8-inch, 210-021 aluminum pressure plates and 216-103 covers.
The pressure plates and covers are installed horizontally at 4 inches on-center over 3/4-inch by 2-inch vertical painted wood furring strips at 48 inches on-center. The furring strips are installed over Revealshield IT vapor barrier and 3/4-inch-thick plywood sheathing.
For exterior cladding, Keystone Metals installed 1,000 square feet of Western States Metal Roofing’s Rustwall weathering steel panels. The 22-gauge, 18-inchwide panels were affixed over VaproShield LLC’s Revealshield IT vapor barrier, which is black and has integrated tape (IT), and 3/4-inch-thick plywood sheathing.
For the existing steel windows, non-insulated glass was removed and the steel frames were preserved. New inward opening windows were installed.
At the driveway bridge, Keystone Metals installed 950 square feet of McNICHOLS Co.’s galvanized, press locked GAA-200 metal grating.
