THARIN HOUSE

LOCATION: Charleston, SC

CLIENT: Private

AREA: 14,000 SF

STATUS: Under Construction

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: K.M. Powell Engineering

MEP ENGINEER: Constantine Engineering

CIVIL ENGINEER: HLA, Inc

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: HLA, Inc

DESCRIPTION: Tharin House is a comprehensive rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of a purpose-built institutional building in Charleston's Wagener Terrace neighborhood. Originally constructed in the 1920s as the Florence Crittenton Home, the 14,000 SF structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and carries a legacy of profound meaning in the city. Rather than subdividing the building into conventional flats, the design converts the structure into nine two-story units, each with its own private ground-floor entrance and no shared interior circulation. This allows the building to read and function more as a collection of townhomes instead of a typical apartment house, something that is more in keeping with the single-family character of the surrounding neighborhood. The non-historic additions that have accumulated over the decades are being removed and replaced with contemporary interventions. Each instance strives to respect the integrity of the original structure while better serving the future program and longevity of the building. When complete, the project will return a landmark to active life within the neighborhood it has anchored for over a century.