Re-imagining The Neighborhood Grocery: The Raleigh Architecture Co. Completes Standard Foods

“The challenge was to create a design concept for the restaurant and bar that is reinforced by our selection of authentic and natural materials and honest detailing.” (Photos ©Atlantic Archives)

When Standard Foods opened in downtown Raleigh’s Person Street Plaza this fall, owners John Holmes and Scott Crawford finally revealed their vision for an all-locally sourced, farm-to-table grocery store and restaurant, both of which celebrate “the food, farmers, and artisanal production methods of our region,” according to the website.

Within the Plaza, a redevelopment project that includes Raleigh City Farm, Yellow Dog Bakery, and other locally owned businesses, something else happened. Standard Foods’ physical space revealed The Raleigh Architecture Company’s interpretation of a shopping and dining experience that is at-once modern, urban, and artisanal.

A few months earlier, while the project was still under construction, John Holmes told the Independent Weekly, “We want the design to reflect what we’re trying to do with the food.” With that in mind, he and Crawford turned to Craig Kerins, AIA, and Robby Johnston, AIA, of The Raleigh Architecture Co (RACo), a local firm well known for custom retail designs and quality craftsmanship.

“The challenge,” Kerins said, “was to create a design concept for the restaurant and bar that is reinforced by our selection of authentic and natural materials and honest detailing.”

Ted Van Dyke of New City Design served as architect of record for the project with RACo as design architect for the front-of-the-house (areas open to the public) and the exterior.

Standard Foods is a 3000-square-foot grocery store, butcher shop, and 80-seat restaurant. The restaurant side features a 26-seat communal table and a 16-seat bar.

Outside, weathered steel slats trace the upper edge of the one-story, matte-charcoal exterior and provide shading for large windows that frame views of the Raleigh City Farm 20 yards away. Eventually the slats will also support plantings to add more shade and elements of the farm to the façade.

Part handcrafted, part sophisticated, the total design creates a distinctive identity for Standard Foods.

Inside, market and restaurant spaces flow into each other and the matte-charcoal reappears on background walls that enhance natural sapele wood and slate wall panels in the market, and heart pine tables and chairs in the restaurant. Metal refrigeration cases gleam under energy-efficient lighting, and accents of marble and leather add upscale elements to the simple, natural materials.

Part handcrafted, part sophisticated, the total design creates a distinctive identity for Standard Foods. Yet the colors and textures of the food – in the market or served on the tables – are the main attractions.

To ensure a community-oriented shopping experience, the aisles in the grocery store area are tight, reminiscent of an urban bodega. The spacing creates an intimate experience with the products. Benches between aisles encourage shoppers to linger.

“Most of us view grocery shopping as a chore,” observed architect Robby Johnston. “Our goal was to make this grocery store an experience – to give shoppers a feeling that’s fresh and friendly with an immediate perception of value.”

Inside, large windows frame views of the Raleigh City Farm 20 yards away.

Standard Foods is a joint venture between Holmes, the president of real estate firm Hobby Properties, and Crawford, the former chef of Herons at The Umstead in Cary and twice a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef in the Southeast. The men call their partnership The Nash Hospitality Group. For more information, go to standard-foods.com.

The Raleigh Architecture Co. is frequently commissioned for urban up-fits in existing buildings in downtown Raleigh. A few of the partners’ completed projects include Arrow Haircuts and NuvoNivo on Hargett Street, Runologie and State of Beer on Hillsborough Street, Trophy Brewing Company on Maywood Avenue and Crank Arm Brewing Company on West Davie Street.

ARCHITECTURE LAB: “Hungry Neck House / The Raleigh Architecture Company”

The Hungry Neck house home sits right in the middle of an old neighborhood in downtown Raleigh, NC, surrounded by busy thoroughfares and an assortment of frame houses from the 1930s and ‘40s.The thoroughfares suggested that the house “turn its back” on the street and focus on a huge, beautiful oak tree in the backyard. In the spirit of the neighborhood, however, a corner of the façade became a front porch overlooking the sidewalk. The owners, a young married couple, also enjoy the fact that their Modern house is helping to reinvigorate an old urban neighborhood that’s been overlooked for decades… READ MORE

Three More Modern Houses Complete The Cluster In “Hungry Neck”

The Raleigh Architecture Co. adds new single-family homes to old urban neighborhood.

The Raleigh Architecture Company (RACo) has completed the final three houses in a cluster of modern, compact, single-family homes within the old “Hungry Neck” neighborhood just east of downtown Raleigh.

Each of the five urban-infill houses – including the original two on Edenton Street — is specific to the owners’ needs and lifestyle, yet they share certain design sensibilities. Each sits on a small buildable area on its lot. That plus tight zoning restrictions suggested compact linear footprints and projecting forms. Front porches, shaded by cantilevered second floors, link the homes to the community and reinforce the existing vernacular. Each house is sited on its lot to maintain the way other houses in this neighborhood address the sidewalk and street. All five houses are filled with an abundance of natural light.

The New Kids on the Block

A series of skylights and high glazing brings light and views into the central space of the new 2000-square-foot Kwon house (above), which happens to be a spacious, double-height kitchen. The owner is passionate about cooking and entertaining, so the dining space flows off from the kitchen and can extend outside on a covered deck. Large roof overhangs shade the windows and cover the balcony off the master bedroom suite upstairs.

For the 1770-square-foot Floyd house (above), two thin, double-height spaces connect the lower floor to the upper story on the northern and southern elevations. A thin shed roof creates a large overhang on the southern elevation and covers a walk out deck. In keeping with the owners’ desire for a clean, minimal interior, crisp white walls rise from blackened oak floors.

Privacy was a key component for the design of the Powers house (above), located on what was a vacant corner lot. A cast-in-place concrete wall adjoining the house creates a private courtyard that shields the house from the busy street nearby. Carefully arranged windows fill the interior with an abundance of natural daylight yet maintain the owners’ privacy. Inside and upstairs, a steel walkway, visible from a double-height space below, connects the two upper bedrooms.

All five houses feature concrete foundations, custom wood trusses, steel columns that allow large spans and spaces inside, high efficiency HVAC systems, European-style cabinetry, and solid oak floors.

The Raleigh Architecture Co. Completes Trophy Brewing & Taproom

The Raleigh Architecture Company (RACo) recently completed the design and construction of Trophy Brewing & Taproom at 656 Maywood Avenue in Raleigh following the success of the firm’s design for the smaller State of Beer bar and bottle shop that opened on Hillsborough Street in 2014.

For their new location, owners David Meeker, Chris Powers, David Lockwood, and Les Stewart asked RACo partners Craig Kerins, AIA, and Robby Johnston, AIA, to transform an existing steel-framed metal warehouse in a post-industrial area of the city into a 12,000-square-foot, 20-barrel production facility. The new facility includes an 8000-square-foot brewery fully visible from the 800-square-foot taproom, a barrel aging room, a keg cooler, office spaces, and a large outdoor patio.

In the brewery, three single-batch fermenters and three double-bath fermenters provide approximately 180 barrels of fermentation space. A reinforced foundation slab supports the weight of the equipment. The partners also had to enlarge the structure’s gas and water supply systems and install extensive floor drainage systems.

Continuous floor-to-ceiling storefront glazing provides a clear view inside the brewery from the taproom. The partners emphasized the visual connection with an angled furniture plan, a continuous solid white oak bar top between the taproom and brewery, and a custom-crafted white oak ceiling in the taproom, also applied on an angle.

According to Johnston, the exterior of the taproom is wrapped in natural white oak that folds into the taproom ceiling over the bar and in contrast with the room’s dark interior. Including the black-stained white oak bar base, the design scheme is “reminiscent of the exterior versus interior of wine and bourbon barrels used in the aging process: The exterior is left natural and the internal is charred to enhance flavor.” The natural and black-stained oak overlap at the 16-seat bar “where you experience the beer,” he added. The partners also specified metallic gold paint to recall the gold or bronze sheen of the facility’s namesake: trophy.

An aluminum-and-glass garage door and storefront glazing also make the brewery operation visible from the patio and the street.

Among other special features are polished concrete floors in taproom, a custom-designed terrazzo tap surround, and custom-designed steel water jet sleeves.

The architect of record for Trophy Brewing & Taproom is David Mauer with RACo serving as design architect and The Raleigh Construction Company as contractor.

EAST OF EDENTON: TWO HOMES TOURS HIGHLIGHT YOUNG FIRM'S PIONEERING PROJECTS IN DOWNTOWN RALEIGH

AIA Triangle and NC Modernist Houses tour-goers discovered Raleigh Architecture Co.’s innovative urban infill houses in an old neighborhood.

“Hungry Neck,” an old, established neighborhood just east of Downtown Raleigh, is not an expected destination for homes tours. A mixed-use neighborhood, most of the houses there were built between 1900 and 1940 and many of those are in disrepair.

However, two recent homes tours – the Triangle section of the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA Triangle) Residential Tour on October 11th and North Carolina Modernist Houses’ (NCMH) annual “ModaPalooza Tour” of strictly Modernist houses on October 17 – brought hundreds of surprised participants to the 500 block of East Edenton Street. There they discovered two Modernist urban-infill houses designed and built by Craig Kerins, AIA, and Robby Johnston, AIA, of theRaleigh Architecture Company (RACo).

At 554 and 556 East Edenton Street, these houses are actually two of five RACo-designed Modernist houses that will soon grace the Hungry Neck neighborhood within a block of each other. One across the street, the Hungry Neck house at 562 New Bern Avenue, is under construction. (The NCMH group got a sneak-peak inside.) Next door to the Hungry Neck house, the Floyd house at 558 New Bern is just a foundation at the moment, as is the fifth project, the Powers house at 567 New Bern.

“We’re very committed to downtown Raleigh,” said architect Robby Johnston, AIA, who co-owns the two-year-old design/build firm with his partner, architect Craig Kerins, AIA. “The name of our firm reflects that and we maintain both our office and shop under one roof in the Warehouse District. We’re very interested in building community in this neighborhood, which is really a delightful place where people on porches and walking down the sidewalk interact all the time.”

Johnston and Kerins also live in or near the downtown district. In fact, 554 Edenton is Johnston’s private residence, which he shares with his wife and two young daughters. Nabarun Dasgupta and Roxanne Saucier own the house next door with son Ishan.

How did RACo manage to get all five commissions? “We created the first two, the Edenton homes, by purchasing both properties and preparing a developmentproforma to court prospective clients,” Johnston explained. “Once these took shape the phone began ringing with interest not only in the area but also in the kind of architecture we were offering. Then we began to create relationships between our clients and prospective landowners and served as purchase advisors/consultants based on our institutional knowledge of the actual value of building in this area.”

Johnston calls the two completed houses on the recent tours “paternal twins.” Architecturally, they share certain similarities, he explained, including North Carolina cypress siding, window style, thin shed roofs, and a narrow footprint – yet maintain individual identities through variations in form and materials. They also share a green space/courtyard since the compact lots didn’t allow for individual side yards, as well as upper-level outdoor spaces: Johnston’s 1800-square-foot house features a second-floor terrace while the 2100-square-foot Dasgupta-Saucier house features a third-story terrace.

The houses differ in additional exterior materials. Gray slate from a demolished house in nearby Historic Brooklyn neighborhood became siding for 554 Edenton. The Corten steel that wraps around 556’s upper level is transforming from a raw steel finish to a uniform, intentional patina as it acclimates to is downtown Raleigh surroundings.

Since Kerins and Johnston knew they were introducing Modernist, sustainable residential design to this old urban neighborhood, they made a concerted effort to recall architectural elements from the existing structures. Front porches, created and shaded by cantilevered upper forms, “pay tribute to the importance of ‘public’ outdoor space in these and all historic Southern homes,” Kerins noted. The houses address the sidewalk at the same distance as neighboring houses and floor-to-ceiling windows on the lower levels engage the neighborhood while high windows on the upper levels provide privacy for the personal spaces there.

To ensure an abundance of natural light in these slim houses, RACo designed open floor plans for both with double-height cores capped by large skylights. RACo fabricated open steel staircases in each to accommodate vertical circulation. At 556 Edenton, the staircase is a bold element within the space.

The NCMH “ModaPalooze” group also visited RACo’s renovation of the Larry Wheeler-Don Doskey house in Chapel Hill.