craft alliance

As a patron of the arts, Craft Alliance seeks to "enrich and empower communities through craft". However, the organization's former home limited its full potential due to the restrictions of its physical space. The 2-story building yielded small, compartmentalized studios with no central gathering space making collaborative opportunities difficult; if not impossible.

Although boarded up and neglected, the design team saw the opportunity for Craft Alliance to thrive in this single-story, concrete structure formerly under-utilized as a warehouse. The 15,000 sf footprint of the existing building would allow all of the individual studios to be located on the same floor, allowing universal access to all of the crafts. The renovation located each of the studios along a centrally-located collaborative space. Coined the "collaborative corridor", this space is the artery by which patrons travel through the building. Each studio is outfitted with a glass overhead door allowing studio spaces to open up to and spill out into the collaborative corridor. Not only does this provide studio flexibility, but it also strengthens connection to the greater community. Furnished with mobile furniture, this space can be quickly reconfigured to support a variety of program ranging from a small charrette to special events.

Over the course of construction, the building underwent meticulous rehabilitation including restoration of the original masonry storefront, installation of new insulated glass into the original window openings and construction of two new giant roof monitors over the former skylight openings. The design team worked with a limited material palette, injecting only birch plywood and glass to contrast sharply with the rich patina of the original structure. The result is a daylit space that encourages cross-pollination within the crafts-world and connection to the greater community.