Project profile: The Barn at Fallingwater

The Barn at Fallingwater is an adaptive reuse of a 19th century heavy-timber barn and its 20th century addition, framed in dimension lumber. The 19th century structure is a bank barn, built into the side of a hill so that two levels can be accessed directly from grade level. It serves as an interpretive portal for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy's 5,000-acre Bear Run nature reserve, immediately adjacent to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Beyond meeting the Conservancy's need for a program center and administrative office space, the Barn provides a living reminder of a largely vanished agrarian way of life in Western Pennsylvania. It manifests the Conservancy's mission statement: "Saving the places we care about by connecting people to the natural world."
(2005 AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Projects recipient)