Sundance Institute in Park City, UT

As Think Architecture and Silver Star developers planned this commercial development project in Park City, UT. They envisioned creating a home for the Sundance Institute by retrofitting historical mining-era buildings into their modern campus design.

Working together, our teams created Sundance Institute’s unique headquarters and year-round office space for the world-renowned Sundance Film Festival. This Park City project involved renovating two old mining-era structures, including a former machine shop that operated during the town’s early mining era. The machine shop was infilled with two-story office space inside the existing steel structure to create 6,000 square feet of usable space for the Institute.

The project also included designing a second building for office overflow inside an old sawmill structure. The site encompassed nearly 2,000 square feet of office space, as well as ten housing units for artists on the structure’s second floor. The entire historical restoration project was one of the community’s most ambitious preservation projects, resulting in beautiful office space that Sundance can use for years to come.

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Sundance Film Festival Headquarters

Preserving Local History with an Innovative Historical Building Retrofit

After striking a deal with Park City’s City Hall and our Silver Star development team, the Sundance Institute turned to Think Architecture to design a modern headquarters that also honored and preserved Park City’s rich history. Our architects collaborated with the Institute to renovate two former mining structures based on a design that combined the Institute’s long-standing history in the filmmaking industry with Park City’s local history. The result? A blend of historic and modern architecture that celebrates the spirit of the famous film festival.

The Sundance Institute headquarter project was one of the Silver Star Development’s most ambitious preservation projects. Our team transformed a former machine shop and sawmill into creative office space by carefully excavating, removing, and installing structural features to ensure total stability. The services required for the renovation included removing windows and siding, shoring up the structure, adding new weather protection, installing new windows with insulated glass, and an office layout inside of the remodeled shell.

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