Community Clay at the Pattern Shop

The Pattern Shop Studio, at 3349 Blake Street, is located in the heart of Denver’s oldest industrial neighborhood. Once home to iron and steel manufacturing and sprawling railroad yards, the River North Art District (RiNo) is now in transition, honeycombed with craft shops, artist’s studios, galleries, graphic design firms and upscale lofts. Among the old factory sites that have been converted to new uses is the hundred-year-old Box Ironworks, which manufactured equipment and electric hoists for the Colorado gold mining industry. From the 1920,s to the 1970’s, Silver Engineering Works used the site to manufacture harvesting and processing equipment for the sugar beet industry. The Pattern Shop at Silver Engineering Works was the building in which woodworkers made life-sized wooden patterns of machine parts that were then converted to iron and steel products in the foundry next door.

The Pattern Shop was sold in 1991 when Silver Engineering moved, and Sharon and Rex Brown worked with architect David Tryba to turn it into an AIA Award-winning studio. The Pattern Shop Studio was a founding member of the River North Arts District. Community Clay recently purchased the building to expand their business, and it is still a thriving historic building in the heart of RiNo.

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