Institutional Projects
Care Center for Christ
A small non-profit community based daycare, looking for light-filled and positive environment for children of local low income families. This "green" daycare is part of the center’s philosophy to provide an innovative and healthy environment for the children in their care.
The Care Center for Christ is a non-denominational organization that provides needed community services for low income families including daycare, continuing education, and food programs. To better serve the larger community, the Center is expanding its facilities utilizing innovations in education, building design, and community development.
Natural lighting is utilized wherever possible to promote health and learning within the new facility.
Cross ventilation will increase the natural air flow so as to improve the learning environment.
A green roof for open air activities as well as Solar Panel Technology will lower utilities while decreasing the carbon impact on community.
Rain Water Recycling will reduce rainwater runoff while managing storm water.
High efficiency fixtures will decrease water consumption.
The center will provide local families with healthy, green building technology, by using environmentally friendly construction materials from structure to finish materials in an effort to reduce off gassing of paints, floor finishes, cleaning products, etc..
YSC Academy
The Academy was designed to create a series of spaces that offer varying degrees of community interaction and reversely varying degrees of individual or private spaces. The repertoire of spaces combine classic educational design with the latest space innovations inspired by the offices of the leaders in technology and other fields such as Google, Apple and Pixar who are reshaping how individuals interact in group environments.
At its roots, the layout of the school reflects the classic urban landscape found in a city like Verona where the major institutions are in varying adjacency to a main square or piazza. The student hall is a place for the entire student body to gather and the library, classrooms, and art room, like the major institutions of a city, lie in varying relationship to it.
Classroom C, designed to implement the Socratic method of learning, continues to define the levels of communal and private by its juxtaposition to the student hall, its own enclosed space, and the space it creates to south that is tucked in a corner away from the hall but open on two sides so that physical environment between the two is not broken. The Scandinavian architect Herman Hertzberger describes the result as the “nest effect,” a feeling of being enclosed at one level but also open to the sky or larger world.
The volume of the cylindrical metal kiosk anchors the entire space. Situated at the corner of the student hall, it is akin to an old town clock. It contrasts with the openness of the Steelcase walls of the facing rooms, reinforcing the varying degrees of continuity, connection and community/privacy.
The built environment of the school was designed to inspire a sense of citizenship among the students through fostering the community at large. We wanted encourage them to be involved in the larger group but through a sense of their own individuality. These are essential elements for their academic or professional careers. It is the hope of the school that they carry this idea of individuality and citizenship to their lives beyond the Academy.
Saint Agnes Parish Center,
23000 square foot parish center included a new gym, classrooms and meeting facilities. The building serves as the social center for the parish. Built on a tight site at the back of the existing school and church the center references the gothic collegiate style of the existing buildings. It utilizes elements of the surrounding parish building while respecting its own use, function and place on the campus. The building was an ambitious project to meet the needs of a growing community that work with the need for a tight budget and schedule as well.
Safe Harbor
Originally a small homeless shelter for men, the shelter struggled with its need to accommodate women and was forced to use make-shift arrangements by sectioning off part of the main dorm. The new facility now comfortably shelters 20 men and 20 women.