Founded in 1927, the J A Riggs tractor company is the premier provider of Caterpillar equipment in Arkansas. For a new retail and service center in Texarkana, the company desired a facility that would match their product in innovation, quality, and customer experience.
Thinking outside the typical large pre-engineered box, the design solution is based on a series of constituent forms, layered from public to private, sales to service, open to secure. Instead of a normally seen room carved out of the corner of the larger metal building, the human scaled lobby/showroom is pulled out as a free-standing, light filled pavilion, sitting as a dynamic element in a lawn. The pavilion’s roof lifts to the north, allowing maximum natural light to display the CAT equipment displayed in the showroom. Offices are located for both visual control of the parts delivery dock as well as the lobby. A large datum wall is the pavilion’s backdrop, defining the private service zone where the equipment is worked on, while serving as a large colorful billboard from the interstate that announces the Riggs CAT brand.
