archimania
Rendering of the planned office building at Main and Carolina
A glowing beacon of urban design and environmental sustainability is headed to South Main.
The Memphis architecture firm archimania plans to move its central office from 356 South Main Street farther south to a new building the firm will build at the corner of Main and Carolina. The plan also calls for the construction of a six-unit apartment building behind archimania’s office.
Once constructed, the two buildings will be the very first privately owned net-zero energy buildings in Memphis. Net-zero energy buildings create roughly as much energy in a year as they use.
The half-acre site is now a blighted railroad parcel of vacant land. The firm’s new office building will transform the site into a glowing light of many colors (more on that later) at what is now a dark corner of Downtown Memphis.
Design plans for the new buildings got the green light this week from the Downtown Memphis Commission’s Design Review Board (DRB).
The firm’s new one-story office building will be a little more than 5,000 square feet. The high front windows of the building “will appear to glow at night when the interior lighting is on, illuminating an otherwise dark portion of South Main Street,” according to the staff report from the DRB.
A low wall in front of the building will be lit with bright LED lights that can be programmed to change colors.
Once the office is built, archimania plans to build a 6,000-square-foot, six-unit apartment building. The architectural style of that building will match the office building.
The project’s strides in environmental efficiency provide less flashy but more substantial elements of archimania’s design. The building will feature solar panels, features for on-site rainwater collection, and more.
All of those elements together will achieve the project’s net-zero energy status.
Below is what the space looks like now.
