Best Made Center/Synergis
Quakertown, Pennsylvania
Adaptive-reuse of a historic industrial shell for a tech company headquarters
Three big ideas:
Adaptive-Reuse,
Design-Build,
Company Culture
With an eye for the creative re-use of industrial sites, developer/builder Gorski Engineering set their sight on the sprawling 65,000 sf former home of the Best Made Silk Hosiery Company in the heart of a historic borough. Re:Vision worked closely with Gorski to conceptualize a redevelopment plan for the new “Best Made Center” which selectively strips away a century’s worth of industrial additions to create a campus arrangement of buildings and outdoor spaces. The central design challenge for the 23,000 sf anchor tenant Synergis Technologies was to bring together two divisions of the company (software programming and sales/training) that have evolved in separate buildings to have distinct cultures and priorities for collaboration and privacy.
Fast Facts
100 years of building additions were removed to create a courtyard and expose the historic building
Historic brick salvaged for use in courtyard paving
Salvaged wood used for cafe booths and reception desk
Energy efficient lighting and HVAC woven through the historic structure
Anchor Building Award - PA Downtown Center
Properties of Merit - Preservation Award, Quakertown Alive!
Adaptive Reuse for a Low Carbon Future
Operational Carbon (the carbon associated with the energy a building uses to run) is only half of the overall carbon equation – Embodied Carbon (the carbon associated with the construction of the building) is the other half. One of the most effective ways to reduce Embodied Carbon is through building reuse, commonly referred to as “Adaptive Reuse.” An existing building’s structure and enclosure can represent 50-75% of the overall embodied carbon investment so reuse gets you ahead of the carbon game right out of the starting blocks!
The Best Made Center was originally a silk hosiery factory constructed of steel, concrete, brick, and wood. The building superstructure and exterior walls were left in place, structurally reinforced, and then refinished inside and out to create a new building out of the old shell!
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