The Revitalist

The Boston Globe ran a nice article that was essentially a soft press hit for FP3, a new condo project in the Fort Point, that talked about the technical demands of adaptive reuse projects. Aside from new mechanical systems, roofs and windows, these projects often require complex retrofitting. The FP3 project built a new building frame of steel inside the historic masonry walls to support the additional weight of added floors and to provide earthquake protection required by the building code.

At Washington Mills, we faced a hard choice between leaving the wooden floors or the wooden beamed ceilings exposed for the tenants, but we couldn't have both. In the end, we chose to cover the floors and leave the pine beams of the ceiling open. The floor system that we chose layered several acoustic mats and covered them with a surprisingly thin layer of concrete. It gives both sound and fire protection between the floors and finishes with an industrial-cool, polished concrete floor. This is just one example of the creative problem solving that has to get done with rehab projects where you have many needs to meet and only a few opportunities to make changes.