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VISIT TO THE PEARL DEVELOPMENT JUST NORTH OF DOWNTOWN SAN ANTONIO UNDERSCORES THE PROMISE of thoughtful, incremental urban placemaking. The 22-acre site was the home of Pearl Brewery until beer production ceased in 2001. The property, with buildings dating from the 1880s, had been slated for demolition when it was purchased by Christopher “Kit” Goldsbury, president of Silver Ventures. Goldsbury hired Lake/Flato Architects to master plan a mixed-use development that focused on the cuisine of San Antonio. Lake/Flato also was commissioned to design two buildings at Pearl – the Full Goods Warehouse (w ith DHR A rchitects as architect of record) and Il Sogno (with interiors by Archon Architecture) – in which the architects employed a range of architectural materials, details, and forms that add to the development’s experiential richness and overall diversity. At the heart of Pearl is the Full Goods warehouse. It is half the size of the original warehouse, which was stripped to its steel frame, much of which is still in evidence. More a new structure than a renovation, it is a variously metal-clad, L-shaped building cut through with two-story breezeways along both legs that create something akin to a shaded public street. Covered in an assortment of metal panels (square, rectangular, smooth, corrugated, rusted) to reduce scale and add visual diversity, the east
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r e s o u r c e s concrete pavement : Alamo Concrete Products; unit pavers : Pine Hall Brick, Acme; site , street and mall furnishings : Landscape Forms; precast architectural concrete : Keystone Concrete; cast stone : Pyramid
Stone; metal decking : Epic Metals, CAPCO STEEL; architectural metal work , metal roofing : CAPCO STEEL; waterproofing : Grace Construction Products; building insulation : Icynene; roof and deck insulation : Carlisle; vapor retarders : Tyvek; wood doors and windows : Jeld-Wen Windows and Doors (Allen & Allen Co.); entrances and storefronts , glazed curtainwall : Vistawall; fluid applied flooring : Mapei, H&C Concrete; paint: Kwal Paint; stucco : TEIFS; breezeway chandelier , signage and graphics : Giles Design; fabric awnings : The Chism Co., fans:
Big Ass Fans; shades : MechoShade; solar energy systems : Schott and Sanyo (Meridian Solar)
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