This building is designed to shelter the needs of two divergent communities. One community is looking for the additional space to store their overflow items, i.e. cars, artworks, wine. The second community is looking for training towards sustainable vocational employment: i.e. mechanics, property management, and hospitality.
The ground floor of this flex space is conceived as the mixing bowl for both groups. Working with the local Boys and Girls Club, the owners hopes to provide an inspiration environment that pays for itself. For instance, the display and storage of unique cars will attract and inspire interested students to learn the skills necessary to care for and maintain the vehicles. Students interested in fine art will be able to engage one on one with the artworks and learn how to preserve and enhance their characteristics. Commercial enterprise will pay for the educational experience. The second level has a more familiar usage, that of a business incubator, providing open areas where start-ups can share ideas and experiences with fellow entrepreneurs. Again, matching the non-profit with the profit, SCORE senior mentoring will provide advice and counseling to the local participants. The architecture is intended to be recessive, passively incorporating wall planting to blend into the suburban site. Featuring a series of 13’ tall hybrid trusses to support both the second floor and roof slab, the open plan of the building allows for flexibility to address unforeseen future programming. These continuous trusses are expressed in the light sourcing interior courtyard. Tilt-up cast concrete panels provide an economical building envelope to enclose the steel framed structure. A double height floor to roof panel raises and lowers to allow access to the courtyard. On the north and south ends of the building the full height curtain wall divides at the floor level to create a single hung window wall. Breaking ground at the end of 2016, the 16,000 sq. ft. project has proved to be so popular that a second identical building is now in the planning stage.
