A pattern for living

Book provides theme for renovation of old factory as living space-gallery-studio

Mary Voelz Chandler, Rocky Mountain News

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Usually doing something "by the book" suggests a lack of imagination.

But when artist Sharon Bond Brown and educator Rex Brown began to envision their combination home, studio, office and gallery space in a former factory building, they turned to a revered work of architectural theory for cues.

From the simple tenets of A Pattern Language came The Pattern Shop.

"It's persuasively common-sensical," said Rex, who founded PS 1 charter school and now is interim director of teacher education at the University of Denver.

The book became "a theme, a touchstone," said Sharon, whose work centers on portraits with a psychological bent.

The two ventured into the project with strong ideas of their own. And they hired an architect - David Owen Tryba - who had his own thoughts. But the 1977 book weighed in on the psychological and aesthetic aspects of home.

The Browns lived in a Denver Square in Mayfair, where Sharon had carved out space in the basement to paint. Then Rex became a finalist for a job at New York University.

They began to look at housing in New York, at prices he termed shocking.

"I did not take the job, but what happened was then we came home, but we had psychologically separated from the house."

Besides, it was just the two of them now; his children from a previous marriage were in college. It was time for a change.

"We needed our space to be redefined," said Sharon.

Poking around the emerging Lower Downtown loft scene led them to developers Jerry Glick and Gerald Ehrlich.

"We said, 'We want a public/private space, a studio and gallery, and a good place for an office, but we want to live there, too,' " Sharon recalls.

Glick and Ehrlich happened to have a building in the middle of their Silver Square project on Blake Street. The windows were boarded up. Inside were feral cats. There had been a fire. There was no plumbing or electricity.

"We shook hands on the property" on the first visit, said Rex. They knew they needed an architect; the developers suggested Tryba, whose practice was new.

The hunt for someplace both public and private ended in 1991 in a turn-of-the-century factory that made wooden patterns for machinery to process sugar beets.

Along the way, they had encountered A Pattern Language. There the couple found ideas such as, "Conceive a house for a couple as being made up of two kinds of places - a shared couple's realm and individual private worlds."

The book also offered suggestions on everything from fleeting views and waist-high countertops to open shelves and comfortable proportions.

A studio, gallery space, office and generous living quarters with plenty of space for entertaining now fill the old building.

It was built between 1898 and 1908 by William Orr McFarlane and his brother Peter, who are memorialized by "M's" in the brickwork on the facade.

It is truly indicative of a different time in Denver that the Browns purchased the place for $117,000 and four months - and $140,000 - later, moved in. That price included adding electricity and plumbing.

"We found ways to keep within our budget, and yet respect the building," Rex said.

Money was an issue, but not the issue, said Tryba.

"It shows what people can do when they have the will and the desire and the vision, and Rex and Sharon had all three," Tryba said. "What you see is the life they have built as a couple . . ."

His plan: "It was conceived as a building within a building." That is, corridors ring the outside of the space, opening to the various rooms on the first and second floors.

The couple gutted the interior, scraping away a warren of small offices. The building has no columns; the second floor is hung from roof trusses. Additional beams were added to provide more support.

"It gave the overall space a tremendous amount of flexibility," Tryba said. "We opened up a box and built a house inside."

Public space - for exhibitions and gatherings - is at the entry, a 30-foot-plus-tall atrium with abundant space on the walls and columns to display art. An antique English farmhouse table is the only furnishing except two well-used chairs to one side.

Front windows and a skylight flood the place with light. The floor has been painted red, but white-bordered squares appear to skew the angle of the room.

Head to the left, and you're in Sharon's studio, with more gallery space and storage in the old company vault. Head to the right, and you enter Rex's office, its walls lined with books and political mementos.

Keep rounding a corner behind his work space and you're in a hallway that leads around the back of the house, past a restroom and small catering kitchen.

Toward one end of the atrium, the staircase leads to the second level. It holds a bedroom and dressing room at one end, a living room and dining room at the other, with a spacious galley kitchen in between.

The only stone slab here is a countertop Sharon uses for prep while baking. The cabinets are a soft yellow laminate; enameled pans arranged on top add more color.

"We were interested in humble materials," she said. That extends to the floor on the second level, which is near-scrap beech, polished to a honeyed gold.

A loft above - for visiting grandkids and storage - is open, allowing a view to the rooms below.

The couple closed up some openings on the north side of the building but left large windows on the other three sides.

Things haven't changed much since the day they moved in. "We wanted to move in with the minimum, and over the years do upgrades," said Rex. The only real refinements involve the lighting system. "You don't know your pattern of movement until you move in," he said.

Added Sharon, "We built in capacity" for the future. "We think it's pretty perfect."

The details

• What: the Pattern Shop studio/home/gallery and office carved out of an old factory

• Where: 3349 Blake St., in the Upper Larimer Neighborhood

• Homeowners: artist Sharon Bond Brown, 61, and educator Rex Brown, 65

• Architect: David Owen Tryba Architects

• Size: about 5,000 square feet

• Cost: purchased for $117,000 in 1991, spent $140,000 on remaking it

• Demo to move-in: four months

Sisters

• What: a show of paintings by Sharon Bond Brown on a theme of sibling relationships, prompted by her sister's recent death from breast cancer

• When and where: opens 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, through November (gallery hours by appointment); the Pattern Shop, 3349 Blake St.

• Of note: It's a stop on Super First Friday, 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 5, and the Ride the RiNo tour, noon to 4 p.m. Oct. 6

• Information: 303-297-9831

Pattern Language at 30

THE BOOK:

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977, Oxford Press), by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein of the Center for Environmental Structure of Berkeley, Calif., with Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King and Shlomo Angel

• What's a pattern: A problem that recurs naturally, with a solution that can be used in myriad ways.

FIVE IDEAS THAT HAVE WORN WELL:

• If there's a beautiful view, don't spoil it by building huge windows that gape incessantly at it. Instead, put the windows that look onto the view at places of transition - along paths, in hallways, in entryways, on stairs, between rooms.

• No one can be close to others without also having frequent opportunities to be alone.

• If the right rooms are facing south, a house is bright and sunny and cheerful; if the wrong rooms are facing south, the house is dark and gloomy.

• Cooking is uncomfortable if the kitchen counter is too short and also if it is too long.

• Cupboards that are too deep waste valuable space, and it always seems that what you want is behind something else.

Chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677