Shade canopy covers front of historic building

Messrs. Adolph Ziegler, Ignaz Fanz and Anton Metler would be pleased that the building they built to house their sausage factory (the Ziegler Building, 1880s) is still housing food-related businesses in the Market Square district of downtown Knoxville, Tenn. more than 100 years later.

Today, the building has benefited from a recent renovation led by Sanders Pace Architecture, of Knoxville, that has removed unsightly grime, tuck-pointed brick coursing and opened up the original vertical format windows topped by transom lights in the front façade. Keeping the façade clean and simple was the main aim of a new shade canopy designed by Sanders Pace Architecture to shelter sidewalk dining patrons of the Soccer Taco restaurant in the Ziegler. The canopy needed to not only show off the restored brick front with its terra-cotta cornices and cast iron storefront detailing, but also to not obscure any daylight that might penetrate to the interior through the transom windows.

As part of a National Register Historic District, the Ziegler needs designers to respect proscribed remodeling guidelines placed on it. For this reason, Sanders Pace kept the canopy’s profile very thin and below the transom lights. Deep sectioned rectangular extruded tubing provides structural strength to the canopy, and with the front to back depth of the canopy at 3m, almost to the limit of zone restrictions. The low angle of slope also meant that any fabric cladding needed to be stable and resist updraft forces. The effortless-seeming design works beautifully because the designers—and Camel Custom Canvas Shop, the fabricator—sweated the details. It paid off.