Like Miller|Hull, Lake/Flato Architects has widened its scope of work to include master planning. One such project, Pearl Brewery, is currently under way along the banks of the San Antonio River, just a mile and a half from the firm’s offices.
Lake/Flato and developer Silver Ventures agreed housing would play a key part in the project, which adapts a former brewery into a mixed-use village. The firm’s master plan dictates that the historic structures on the site—some more than 100 years old—undergo restoration, while newer warehouse buildings are transformed. (The Can Recycle Building, below, with design concept by Lake/Flato and architecture by Durand–Hollis Rupe Architects, is an example of the latter strategy.) “The point was to keep the site kind of gritty,” says principal David Lake, FAIA. Old brewing vats will harvest rainwater, and a large array of PV panels will collect solar energy.
A handful of other designers are also involved in Pearl Brewery, including Lake/Flato progenitor Ford Powell & Carson and Moule & Polyzoides.