In Which I Get Way Too Excited About Adaptive Reuse

Diane von Furstenburg Headquarters. Via work.ac.

In addition to hanging with the Hometta folk, I'm an arts & architecture reporter for our local alt weekly, the Houston Press. And sometimes the folks I've followed in one world pop up in another, and it's like finding out two of your unconnected friends know each other. We at Hometta have admired the architecture of WORKac for awhile, and so I was thrilled to learn that their first Texas commission will be in Houston, at the excellent Blaffer Art Museum on the University of Houston campus.

Perhaps my writeup for the Press was a little over-enthusiastic, overly serious, or maybe my editor just thought I (and my post) needed a little tweaking.  Witness this earnest paragraph:

And according to New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission, WORKac accomplished that dialogue with their construction of Diane von Furstenburg's swank New York headquarters, an adaptive reuse of a historic Manhattan meatpacking district building--also hailed as a "new model of adaptive reuse for the city."

To which my editor appended, succinctly skewering my adaptive reuse happiness, "Rawr." I'm not generally prone to punctuating architectural pieces with animal noises, but now that I take another look at the "diamond penthouse," which was constructed in Spain for installation on the building's roof, maybe that little bit of extra emphasis is just what's needed. 

Rawr, indeed:

Diane von Furstenburg headquarters. Via work.ac