An inside look at Charlie Vinz’s three year Architecture Residency at Ox-Bow House.
Shanley Poole: Can you give us a snapshot of what the past 3 years has been like as Ox-Bow’s first Architect-in-Residence?
Charlie Vinz: It’s been pretty wonderful. A typical architectural project is very oriented around a fixed set of deliverables, phases, and timelines. With Ox-Bow House, we intentionally waited to think about any specific design planning. This has allowed me to kind of meander through a more research oriented process, while Ox-Bow as an organization adapted and expanded new programming into the space, and Douglas as a community got to welcome this new presence downtown.
Collage work of Ox-Bow House by Charlie Vinz.
SP: How did your approach evolve as time passed?
CV: Getting to observe and learn from that process of Ox-Bow growing into the space and Douglas getting to know Ox-Bow a little better has definitely shaped my approach. From how we think about spatial programming, to how Ox-Bow thinks about more public programming, things have shifted from how we initially imagined it. For example, the retail footprint has shown a lot more impact, so that will inevitably be more forward in the redesign, while public programming is probably more focused on exhibitions and less on events. In general, my approach now is more confident in making decisions around potentially radical alterations to the existing building because of my growing familiarity with all the moving (and static) parts.
SP: What values and philosophies guided the residency process?
CV: I’ve tried to prioritize observing and listening. In general, I think my residency has been far less “public” than we originally planned in terms of explicit programming, but I’ve maintained a working studio space there where I keep research and working process plans and ideas out for people to see. Along with the physical interventions I made to the building earlier on, this has invited a lot of different types of conversations and interactions and has been enlightening in its own way.
Collage by Charlie Vinz.
SP: Are there any especially exciting discoveries that you unearthed?
CV: Earlier this year, Eric Gollannek over at the Saugatuck Douglas History Center gave me an updated chunk of fun tidbits that were published in The Commercial Record that have references to the early formation, construction, and alterations to the building. This has helped connect a few dots, though I’ve also come across some significant conflicting accounts of the years and dates for the uses of the building. Its use as a library is very well documented and remembered, but everything before that (1980) gets very hazy.
I was able to source the gymnasium hardwood flooring as coming from a mill in Grand Rapids that specialized in maple flooring. While digging around looking for that lumber stamp, I found a set of fingerprints on the underside of the original subflooring. Their location and positioning is such that I’m 99% sure they’re from when the building was built. Was it rainy/muddy that day? Did the builder have a particularly greasy lunch and that board was a napkin? We can’t know for sure, but it helps take you back in time 150 years to try to imagine.
A glimpse of the fingers mentioned above. Photo courtesy of Charlie Vinz.
SP: What potential alterations to the space most excite you?
CV: We still haven’t finalized what the program will be, so an actual design is still pretty unrefined, but I think I’m still excited by the challenge of “reorienting” the space both physically in how people enter and move through the space, and in how it’s interpreted by the public. One of the big undertakings earlier on was doing a rough calculation of the embodied carbon of the building. In that process and in researching the history of logging in the area, I’ve been in awe of the lumber and timbers used in the original construction; that they were likely milled just down the street and harvested within a very small radius. I’m hoping that this embodiment of the history of this site can be revealed and celebrated more in whatever we do.
Charlie Vinz is an architect, designer, and artist who searches for simple solutions to complicated problems. In his approach, cultural production is an extension of the built environment, which is part of an open-ended, collaborative process. Vinz studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and Bauhaus Universitat in Weimar, Germany, graduating with a BArch in 2004. He has worked at architecture firms in Chicago, with artist Theaster Gates and Rebuild Foundation, and was the Creative Director of the Rebuilding Exchange before starting his own practice, Adaptive Operations, which primarily adapts buildings and spaces for new and different uses and works with artists and cultural organizations. Vinz is currently an Architect-in-Residence at Ox-Bow.
This article was written by Shanley Poole, Engagement Liaison & Storyteller. The article was originally published in our 2025 Experience Ox-Bow Catalog. All images courtesy of Charlie Vinz.