LSC—O is new state-of-the-art multipurpose facility in Little Village, designed by M1DTW Architects, that serves as a space to preserve and showcase the extensive art collections and archives of sister galleries Library Street Collective and Louis Buhl & Co.

The interior is configured as a support space for the client’s curatorial needs and includes a private viewing room and dedicated photography center. A system of ready-made industrial pallet racks was adapted to store and protect items from damage and to help define the building’s other uses.

The project is inherently flexible and achieves its goals with a limited material palette, including a burnished concrete floor, raw wood ceiling, and gallery white walls. Spaces are defined by the placement of commercial pallet racks, powder-coated in a custom color. Racks adjacent to the entryway and office area are clad on one side in wood panels ripped from Baltic birch plywood to define ‘front of house’ areas of circulation. The north street façade, where the storefront had been closed with painted CMUs, was opened and replaced with 9′ tall polycarbonate panels that wash the interior with diffuse and ever-changing natural light during the day and create a beacon-like luminous surface at night.