Fortune Acres Greenhouse

Indianapolis, Indiana 2019

 Program:

All-season greenhouse facility and commercial kitchen for education and workshops.

Status:

Design

Client:

Fortune Acres, Indianapolis

Description:

Working with timberframing company, The Beamery, Puzzello Architecture Practice set out to create a greenhouse facility that would be an architectural complement to the farm campus, to allow the farming practice to grow all-season and to have the capacity to engage public education and domonstrative workshops involving organic cooking.

Designed to be a part of the ensemble of existing timber-framed structures, the funnel shape plan allows for maximum orientation towards the outlying acreage of extended farmland while simultainiously creating a maximum north-south orientation. As a part of the campus plan of buildings, the new greenhouse proposal is shaped as a platonic form of a triangle and associates itself with the other existing farm structures of rectangles and circles. The triangular shape also maximises the structural stability of the greenhouse building allowing for the thinnest possible framing members to allow maximum sunlight transmittance. The interior timber members are clearly articulated as compression members with all tension members as cable and steel rods, further reducing the density of the framing support structure.

Architect:

Puzzello Architecture Practice

Timber Frame Fabrication/Installation:

The Beamery

Structural Engineer:

Fire Tower Engineered Timber