Abandoned for half a century, the Neuhoff Slaughterhouse Complex in Nashville has become the subject of a major renovation project by S9 Architecture. The firm’s vision is for highly curated and strategic preservation of a 12.77-acre waterfront site dominated by a cluster of early- and mid-20th-century buildings and structural ruins.

Circulation within the site was designed as a nod to historic hill towns: steep topography to overcome, varied scale of open spaces and passageways between buildings, and vantage points on the river beyond which the history of the site revealed as traces across the landscape. The neighborhood thus integrates the different programs into one cohesive development. It houses offices, residential units, cultural institutions, and retail stores. Restaurants, cafes and entertainment venues activate the ground level, ensuring a vibrant streetscape. The project promotes a vibrant work-life-play environment that enhances Nashville’s growing urban fabric.

What is special about the project, however, is the care taken in the conversation of the site. Existing concrete slabs, once chiseled away by hand to pull cattle hooves, are reclaimed as specialty pavements. The remains of plants that have grown unchecked over the decades are interpreted and expressed as gestures throughout the site to maintain the authenticity of a recovered landscape.