THE METEOR
Tucked within the raw, industrial basement of a former farmer’s co-op, The Meteor is an exercise in calibrated restraint. Rather than overwrite the space’s inherent character, the design acts more as a frame than an intervention, allowing the grit, rhythm, and heaviness of the structure to speak for itself.
Set within a larger adaptive reuse project transforming the buildings into restaurants and cafe, the project anchors the basement level with a fully open exhibition kitchen. There is a blurring between the back of house and kitchen, inviting patrons into the rawness of the space and place of making. True back of house spaces like storage and restrooms are cloaked in a field of handmade green tile, while the rest of the space remains untouched.
The material strategy is one of juxtaposition: refined against raw. Where access and sanitation demand new construction, it’s executed with precision and beauty. Everywhere else, the architecture disappears.
Focusing on intentional moves that lean into the elegance of the unrefined space, small punctures drilled through the thick walls create tiny windows. Pinholes of daylight that gently break the heavy enclosure seemingly unclear whether they were existing or not. Lighting is decentralized, arranged to create intimacy and rhythm across the large open plan. The structural grid is left exposed, celebrated as a hall of concrete columns. a monumental rhythm in miniature.
THE METEOR
YEAR 2024
FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS
Photos by King Lawrence
Construction by Clark Contractors
Engineering by Omni Engineers
Kitchen Consultation by DV8 Kitchens
This is not a renovation that imposes order; it’s one that reveals what’s already there. The Meteor embraces the irregular, the unfinished, the heavy, and the old not as problems to solve, but as material conditions with their own spatial logic and affective power. Who doesn’t love a hypostyle hall?