STUDIO V Architecture has created a radical design vision for Silo City—the adaptive reuse of the largest collection of grain elevators in the world. Working with owner Rick Smith and development partners, STUDIO V’s design combines innovative architecture, adaptive reuse, and public spaces for over 1 million square foot of ruined industrial buildings in Buffalo, NY. The project will support an extraordinary range of residential, commercial, cultural and recreational uses.

Located on the winding Buffalo River adjacent to Downtown, Silo City contains ten massive concrete grain elevators interconnected with masonry warehouses, mills, and malt-houses. STUDIO V’s design breathes new life into this iconic collection of structures - today largely abandoned - that inspired the 20th century giants of modern architecture, including Le Corbusier, Mendelsohn, and Gropius. The new architectural design combines innovative areas for fine arts & culture (like galleries, installations, art gardens) with body culture, including an elevated natatorium with pools and a velodrome. Housing will be constructed in the flexible mill structures.

The project envisions a mutable design whose temporal phases constantly overlap: Silo Ruins, Silo Gardens, Silo Passage, and Silo City. Silo Ruins offers organic programs encouraging awareness and visibility: concerts, exhibitions, tours, and events. Silo Gardens offers a green and tectonic “nursery” of interventions to sustain, enhance, and expand the programming, including infrastructure and landscape, green spaces and amenities. Silo Passage reinvents existing bridges and conveyors by adding new staircases, escalators, and rooftop gardens to provide a “sky path” overlooking the horizons of Lake Erie. Lastly, Silo City engages and integrates the entire campus with overlapping galleries, artist housing, arts hotel, affordable housing, maker space, local restaurant, and physical culture spaces.