oxbow house
location: Douglas, MI
date: 2022-present
type: residency
role: architect-in-residence
From 2022-2024, principal Charlie Vinz was in residency at Ox-Bow School of Arts and Artist Residency, researching the interwoven histories of the Ox Bow Campus, the Douglas/Saugatuck area, and Ox Bow House, a 150 year old building the previously served as Douglas' public library. Following that period, AO has begun the schematic design process for the transformation of Ox Bow House with a renovation and addition.
Ox-Bow House is an extension of the Ox-Bow School of Art and Artist’s Residency in Saugatuck, Michigan. It will serve as an exhibition hall, gallery, and retail environment that connects the historic school and campus environment to the broader community. It will also house administrative spaces, as well as Ox Bow's archives, which had previously not been consilidated in a single location over its 115 year history.
Part of the project involves a comprehensive embodied carbon accounting using an iteratively developed methodology first piloted on Narrow Bridge, another AO reuse project in Chicago. An inventory of relevant materials and their quantities is produced, followed by research into the embodied carbon associated with each material. These values are added together to estimate the carbon emissions associated with constructing a hypothetical identical building made using modern material sourcing and processing techniques.
Organization: Ox-Bow School of Art and Artist's Residency
