Turnpike Interchange Industrial Park

Industrial Architecture Celebrating Rural Heritage

Located within an industrial and retail corridor along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and nestled among existing barns, silos, and an historic farm house, this three-building distribution campus blends past with present. The campus is the first industrial project for Audubon Land Development, a family-owned company with a 50-year history of elevating the quality of life for residents of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Together with the KSS team, Audubon saw an opportunity to capitalize on the site’s high visibility from the Turnpike and Pottstown Pike to by creating and communicating a different kind of distribution center—one that speaks to both the ethos of the developer and the heritage of the site. 

In researching the history of the site and surrounding rural area, the team found inspiration in barn quilts, a tradition dating back to the Pennsylvania Dutch who in the 1800s began painting quilt patterns on barns to celebrate their heritage and bring good fortune. A barn quilt revival began in the early 2000s with “Barn Quilt Trails” cropping up around the country to celebrate the rural countryside and its architecture while providing recreational activity and stimulating local economies. The design pays homage to this tradition by incorporating a barn quilt design into the highly visible corner façades as beacons celebrating local culture and heritage. Corners are further defined with significant glazing and canopies. Supported by stone-wrapped columns, the canopies incorporate local materiality and break down scale. Sublty patterned white precast wraps around the corner, alternating with deep gray reveals along the façade to create movement and visual interest.