Community is critical to the work we do at Work Program Architects. Whether we’re working with local officials, engaging small business owners or talking with neighbors about their hopes and concerns, we rely on their voices to help our projects enhance the social, economic, and environmental landscape of our region.
Barbara Horwitz-Bennett at Architectural Products recently highlighted this aspect of our work in her Last Details column, going so far as to call the work WPA does “a shining example of community architecture at its finest.”
To support that superlative statement, she shared some of our favorite community-focused projects, like the Ryan Resilience Lab, OpenNorfolk, and the Perry Glass Studio at the Chrysler Museum of Art. Each of these projects reflects our mission to make communities stronger, more vibrant, and more resilient.
“We view the community as a major stakeholder in the work we do. They might not be the ones calling for a proposal, but they will be impacted by the environments we help build,” WPA CEO Mel Price told Horwitz-Bennett. “For a project to be successful, those impacts need to be taken into account, which means that those people need to be listened to.”
Read the full article in Architectural Products here.
Assembly, the downtown Norfolk office campus housed in a century-old building, is being awarded The Gabriella Page Outstanding Preservation Project Award by Preservation Virginia. The restored five-story building at 400 Granby Street, which was co-designed by Work Program Architects and Campfire & Co., joins a distinguished list of preservation projects that have been recognized by the organization since 1971.
“The 2024 slate of awardees demonstrates the power of historic preservation in revitalizing communities and sharing stories the general public otherwise may not know,” said Elizabeth S. Kostelny, Preservation Virginia CEO, in a statement. “Historic preservation is a proven economic engine in cities and rural areas, and the stories these places share add understanding to where we came from and where we’re going.”
Assembly actually occupies three historic buildings on Granby: the Ames & Brownley, built in 1919, which became Rice’s Department Store; the Sears & Roebuck building, and an adjacent warehouse. A full restoration brought back the main building’s 1920s appearance, while a thorough renovation of the 50,000-square-foot building introduced public spaces, a five-story open air stairway, shared work areas for the tenant businesses, and a rooftop terrace.
In recognizing the project and a design-build team that includes Commonwealth Preservation Group and Clancy & Theys Construction, Preservation Virginia stated that “Assembly represents visionary and creative preservation of a historic building while adaptively re-using it for modern audiences.”
“This is a magnificent building with an incredible history,” said Robert Crawshaw, the project designer for Assembly. “It was so important to us that we preserve that history and its character, even as we prepared the building for its next chapter, as an incubator for creativity and innovation in this region. This award is recognition that we succeeded.”
Assembly is one of five projects to receive the Gabriella Page award this year, joining the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House in Alexandria, The Waterford Mill in Waterford, Old City Hall in Richmond, and The Inn at Foster Falls in Max Meadows. All the recipients will be recognized during a ceremony Friday, September 27, at Main Street Station in Richmond.
We could not be more excited to announce that we are joining our longtime friends and collaborators @thisisgrow and @madebysway and our new friends @flagshipvisuals in @assemblynfk. Assembly is designed to connect — people, creative companies, our community and the region. Assembly will be packed full of shared amenities and collision spaces that will push each of our companies to grow and succeed faster as we learn from and collaborate with each other. WPA is proud to be designing Assembly for friends who we admire and who have been pushing each other to do our best for Norfolk/VB and the region for over a decade!
