Just off downtown Loveland, Colorado is the ancient and intriguing Loveland Feed & Grain building. A many-year preservation and restoration effort has been taking place to find new uses for this magnificent building, expertly documented and researched in Christopher Th0rp's report and headed up by a non-profit and Novo Restoration.
I believe that we should all take extra efforts to try to find ways to save these agricultural buildings from the nineteenth century. Loveland's thriving arts community has taken a kind of stewardship of this building and there are plans afoot to transform it into an arts complex with adjacent live/work artist's housing next door.
I have written quite a bit about trying to find a Colorado vernacular and folding this in to the making of a kind of critical regionalism for the Front Range. I can think of no better example of a building to start with and a potential to fulfill. A semi-public Request for Qualifications went out for the making of the live/work residences and we passionately submitted our team and hope to be involved. Stay tuned.
(all photos by Mark Gerwing)