The City of Norfolk engaged Team Better Block to work with the community to temporarily transform a portion of Granby Street into a vibrant preview of the upcoming Art and Design District. For two beautiful days in April, an amazing number of volunteers came together to realize a kind of “Living Charrette”; an experiment in urban design and pop-up commerce that included art galleries, performance spaces, and shops in empty storefronts; a public plaza with live music, art-making demonstrations, and a beer garden; food trucks parked along Granby Street; new sharrows and crosswalks painted on the street.
Better Block presented the perfect reason to retrieve The Kiosk from its resting place in storage at the Branch House headquarters of the VSAIA. It had renewed purpose to fulfill its function as a “content generation machine” with the goal of learning what people would like to see in the soon-to-be Art & Design District, much like it did in the three different locations around Old Manchester, Richmond. A hit with the huge crowd that attended the event, the Drawing Box quickly took on a new life as a tag wall for young and old alike. Our favorite: “Best Day Ever.” (though the Ninja Turtle was a close second).
Click this link to read Team Better Block’s assessment of Norfolk’s event (top five!), and be sure to watch the featured video by #PRESSPLAE – the Kiosk is featured at the end.
PANORAMIC VIEW OF BETTER BLOCK
VIEW FROM SOUTH
ZEDDS CORNER FUN
VIEW FROM INSIDE DRAWING BOX
ZEDDS CORNER VIEW TO LOWER GRANBY-SCOPE
VIEW FROM INSIDE DRAWING BOX
VIEW FROM INSIDE ADJACENT WINDOW
JUNIOR FIREMAN IN THE DRAWING BOX
ZEDDS CORNER AT NIGHT
NIGHT VIEW
PANORAMIC VIEW OF BETTER BLOCK
Progress sections and elevations for renovations to 429 Granby Street from the Revit model for Grow Interactive.
Thanks to all of our friends and neighbors in the Monticello Arcade who put on such a beautiful party, and to Cavalier Land for purchasing three gorgeous trees to line the arcade. Peter had fun Stringing up the lights that draped across the balconies of the arcade, creating a scene reminiscent of the old Granby Street Mall. A big welcome to our new neighbors here NEST home and VIP Nails– we wish everyone in the Arcade much success in 2013! A huge thank you to Cavalier Land for allowing us to keep the arcade open on the weekends; watching people make our arcade part of the their route through downtown Norfolk has been wonderful!
Our other neighbors: Studio Posy, Salon Fringe, and Smooth
When Grow Interactive renovated their new office at 427 Granby Street in 2010, they performed one of the finest renovations the street has seen in recent years. At that time, Mel and Thom were still with other firms, and Peter was building their butcher block furniture out of his Granby Street workshop. This collaboration brings together a metric ton of mutual respect and great friendships while promising to do something tremendous for downtown Norfolk: the front portion of this new space will be designed as the premier gathering place in Downtown Norfolk for some lucky entrepreneur to use to launch a brand new business.
The 429 property has been vacant for many years and will be thoroughly gutted and rebuilt with offices and workspace for Grow in the rear, and a restaurant, complete with rooftop dining, occupying the front. The goal for the restaurant is to push the boundaries of facade permeability and customer-pedestrian interactivity in downtown.
Studies and the design process are ongoing, but we promise that this will be a space that helps to redefine Granby Street.
WPA’s sign for Satya Yoga was installed this week. We’re very proud of this sign and especially of the way that the stainless steel and teak wood blend in with Historic Freemason. The laser-cut stainless bracket spells out “Satya” in Sanskrit and is designed to be reminiscent of the Victorian brackets found on nearby buildings. The teak wood will naturally age to a dignified gray in time.