As advocates for sustainable construction, CB&E Construction Group purchased this former vehicle emission testing building outside of St. Louis, Missouri, seeking to completely restore the façade to turn it into their new office space.
“We knew that the energy we would use in knocking the building down would be too great,” said Gus Cervetto, Principal of CB&E. “Preserving the building was a top priority for us.” But it would take a lot of work to transform the bland government building into an eye-catching office.
Gray Design Group Principal Architect, Larry Milles and his team presented a design that took advantage of the garage bay doors and incorporated a sweeping radius wall entrance. This curvilinear façade extends the front elevation along the street frontage to define the elegant building entry, accessed through a new, landscaped courtyard.
The design originally called for metal panels, which were ultimately rejected due to their significantly higher cost. Instead, the Dryvit Outsulation® MD system with the Reflectit™ exterior finish for the cladding replicated the look of the metal panels, while providing a more energy-efficient solution at a fraction of the price.
Milles explained that “To do a radius with either metal or block or other materials is certainly possible, but it is substantially more costly and more difficult to work with. Dryvit’s Reflectit offers a look that everyone responds to, and...a lot of flexibility to bring very dramatic features to the building design at an affordable price.”
