Steelcraft
Location
Long Beach, CA
timeline
2017
Role
Consultant
Services
More Info
Located in the Bixby Knolls neighborhood of Long Beach, SteelCraft is an outdoor food hall created using ten 20- and 40-foot shipping containers that host eight businesses, including a Japanese ramen restaurant, an award-winning brewery, and a chocolate shop.
City Fabrick provided building, landscape, and graphic design for SteelCraft, providing a comprehensive approach to the look and feel to the user experience and brand identity. SteelCraft is now a unique addition to the community and has been able to stimulate the economic growth in the surrounding neighborhood. More importantly, this project pushes the envelope on how adaptive reuse and pedestrian-oriented design can be successfully accomplished in the City of Long Beach, inspiring similar projects in other communities.
Urban + Systems
Planning + Policy
Building + Interior
City Fabrick worked with the tenants, developer, contractor, kitchen designer, and container fabricator to design a cohesive language between the different tenants and functions leveraging unique brands and offerings of each business while developing a unifying aesthetic for the site. Folly-like wood elements were designed to define edges, provide seating, and give shade, giving warmth to the cold steel containers. Active engagement with City officials was necessary to move through Building Code interpretation as the use of shipping containers for permanent structures was in its infancy, with this project providing a proof of concept for multiple jurisdictions across Southern California.
Landscape Architecture
City Fabrick designed the outdoor spaces and landscape to work with the wood elements and furniture to soften the rigid steel container aesthetic while withstanding the heavy foot traffic in confined spaces. Surface treatments provide queues to occupants for circulating, queuing, dining, and hanging out. Landscape along the edges of the site provide insulation while integrating into the mixed-commercial corridor and surrounding residential neighborhood.
Graphic
City Fabrick worked with the developer and graphic designer to build a visual identity for Steelcraft through wayfinding, tenant signage, and color palette. The contrasting colors of warm grey and burnt orange used on the containers creates an inviting presence on the street that is both distinct yet also nestled within the surrounding context. Graphic standards developed to this first Steelcraft welcomes the unique character of each tenant while maintaining a cohesive identity among the community of small businesses, which has been applied to multiple other locations. The brand continues to be employed at their subsequent locations, including the environmental graphics and architecture.
