Take 5 Oil Change, Sugar Land — the completed brick and stone frontage with three service bays open beneath a wide Texas sky

A collection  ·  5 locations  ·  Texas

Take 5
Oil Change

One building. Five grounds.

Locations
5
Region
Texas
Type
Retail

00

The collection

The same store, 5 times, never the same job.

Take 5 arrives as a fixed idea: three bays, drive-through service, and a livery that has to be readable at forty miles an hour. The building barely argues with itself from one site to the next — that consistency is the point of it.

What changes is everything underneath. One site had to be demolished and drained before it could be built on. One was an open field beside a new retail terrace. One traded stucco for brick and stone to answer its neighbours. Read together, the 5 of them are less a set of stores than a record of how much ground work a repeatable building actually takes.

01

Take 5 Oil Change

Orange, TX

Orange is the clearest record of the sequence. Bare ground to open forecourt in nine frames — formwork and excavation, a poured slab, the timber frame, sheathing, stucco, and finally the livery that makes the building legible from the road.

Timber formwork laying out the footprint on bare ground, an excavator and skid-steer working behind, with an auto parts store across the road
Reinforcement and vapour barrier laid over the prepared pad, a water tower and a Dollar General visible beyond the site fence
The slab poured and being floated by the crew, blockouts formed and the wet surface worked out to the edges
The timber frame standing against a blue sky, the corner tower framed tall and braced, with joist hangers and straps in place
Plywood sheathing going on over the frame, wall braces and a ladder hoist set against the elevation
Grey stucco base coat across the elevations with the parapet cap fitted and the canopy bays still open
The finished red and gold livery with three roll-up doors and glazed bay fronts, the forecourt still unpaved
Sod being laid at the side elevation with light poles up and the forecourt concrete poured
The completed Orange store open for business, OIL CHANGE STAY IN YOUR CAR running across the bays

01 / 09

02

Take 5 Oil Change

Gesner / Houston, TX

Gesner had to be taken apart before it could be built. An existing slab was broken out and hauled off, and a stormwater detention field was assembled below the lot before any of the building went up — the most engineered ground of the five.

Aerial view of the site being cleared, an excavator breaking out the existing concrete slab into a waiting haul truck beside a busy road
The excavated lot with stormwater detention crates stacked along the fence line and a supermarket across the road
The stormwater detention field assembled in the excavation and wrapped in geotextile, a roller working the surrounding subgrade
Geogrid and membrane rolled out across the prepared subgrade, an excavator working at the far edge of the site
Formwork, vapour barrier and reinforcement set out ready for the slab pour, the crew working across the pad
The timber frame standing with a carpenter working along the top plate and sheathing stacked on the lot
Scaffold along the elevation with the stucco base coat applied and the parapet profile formed
The finished red and gold elevation with the bays open, before the forecourt is paved
The completed Gesner store in late afternoon light, state inspection and oil change signage across the three bays

01 / 09

03

Take 5 Oil Change

College Station, TX

A pad site inside a new retail centre, taken from open field to opening day. This one has neighbours: it sits at the head of a masonry terrace and answers to it, while keeping the three bays and the signage that have to read at speed.

The vacant pad site before construction, a leasing information board at the kerb and the retail terrace in the distance
The completed frontage on opening day, three bays open beneath grand opening banners and the street number on the tower
The store seen from the parking court, standing at the head of the neighbouring retail terrace
Three-quarter view showing the brick base course, office windows, condensers and new tree planting
The wider forecourt with the store and its neighbours across newly poured paving
The screened service side with the gate closed and STAY IN YOUR CAR lettering along the parapet

01 / 06

04

Take 5 Oil Change

Sugar Land, TX

The most contextual of the five. Brick and stone replace stucco across every elevation and a monument sign sets the entrance, yet the plan behind the facing is unchanged — the same three bays, dressed for a different street.

The site before construction: rough ground and standing water, with neighbouring retail and self storage beyond the highway
01  Before
The completed brick frontage with three bays open beneath banner signage and a wide cumulus sky
02  Frontage
The corner elevation in brick over a stone base course, carrying the street number and business hours panel
03  Brick and stone
The store from the far side of the forecourt with light poles and new planting around the paving
04  Approach
Inside a service bay with the overhead doors up: equipment carts, oil stock shelving, waste drums and the drive-over pit
05  Inside the bay
The brick monument sign at the site entrance with the completed store beyond across new lawn
06  Monument

01 / 06

05

Take 5 Oil Change

West Rd, Houston, TX

West Rd went up two ways at once. The lower storey was laid on site in structural cement block; the upper portion was prefabricated at a factory and set on top of it. A retaining wall takes the change in grade, holding the finished forecourt above the sidewalk.

The completed store seen from the street corner under a heavy sky, grand opening banners across the bays and the pole sign at the kerb
The frontage three-quarter on: the raised tower carrying the Take 5 mark, three shuttered bays and the street number, with new lawn to the front
The bay elevation with the roll-up shutters down at the end of the day, service banners above each opening
Looking down the exit lane along the flank of the building, kerbs picked out in red and a neighbouring brick warehouse beyond
The rear elevation: a plain stuccoed wall over a block base with the service door, meters and condenser unit
The finished forecourt from the far corner, freshly striped concrete running up to the bays with neighbouring retail across the road

01 / 06

Client
Take 5 Oil Change
Locations
5
Region
Texas
Type
Retail
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