Work Program Architects continues to be proud and honored to be a part of JT’s Camp Grom team helping to bring this camp to life. Last week was the JT Walk & Beach Party kick-off event at the Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront. The first renderings of the Welcome Center were presented to an invigorated and excited crowd.
WPA was excited to partner with the City of Norfolk and City of Hampton to assist in hosting the Dutch Dialogues VA: Life at Sea Level. People living in the Netherlands are surrounded by water and have suffered through flooding for centuries. Due to this experience they realized that the answer was not to build higher barriers, but to figure out how to live more naturally with water. The “Dutch Dialogues” workshops bring together Dutch engineers, urban designers, landscape architects, city planners and soils/hydrology experts and local counterparts to explore creative and innovative solutions to the challenges inherent in living in a coastal city.
WPA is proud to promote a public interest design project by our very own Jeremy Maloney. Recently it was featured on Architecture Served and Inspiration Is which showcase work from leading creatives on Behance. The Grow Dat Youth Farm was the result of the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative at Tulane University with the design and construction lead by the Tulane City Center. A team of Tulane Architecture students worked collaboratively on the 4 acre site plan, landscape architecture, and the architecture that supports the Grow Dat’s agricultural and educational programming.
Grow Dat Youth Farm is located in New Orleans’ City Park. Their mission is to nurture a diverse group of young leaders through the meaningful work of growing food. They work collaboratively to produce healthy food for the local residents and to inspire youth and adults to create personal, social, and environmental change in their own communities.
WPA would like to say congratulations to our friends at New Earth Farm in Virginia Beach on their feature story ‘A Sustainable Life’ in Distinction magazine. We are excited to be working with them again on their latest hyperlocal venture: Commune Crepes.
WPA was selected by Pinecrest School to design a new Lower School in Annandale, Virginia to replace an existing school building. After touring the campus and meeting with teachers, parents, students, administrators, and the school’s board of directors, WPA worked with a group of Pinecrest stakeholders to design a facility that will fit the unique needs of the Pinecrest community; a community that emphasizes family involvement in education in an atmosphere that strives to support each student academically, socially, and emotionally.
Tim Bearse’s sculptures and mixed-media artwork reference the composition, form, and velocity of skateboarding videos. His objects, which at first glance appear to be modernist abstractions, borrow their shape from concrete swimming pools and community-built ramps. The referents, and their larger culture, are specific, though they ultimately point toward something larger: the built environment’s capacity for intervention, collectivization and empathy; the creative potential of kinesthetic awareness; the complexities of tactile, modular forms; and speed as a method of non-lingual communication.
Work is progressing on the construction of WPA’s new entry and administrative office suite addition to St. Gregory the Great Catholic School in Virginia Beach. The new entrance gives the Administration better visual control over the school entrance for increased safety, and provides a large covered canopy to shade and protect the students as they wait for pick-up. This Design-Build effort is led by R.D. Lambert & Son.
Atlanta’s Oglethorpe University approached WPA to lead the predesign efforts for the renovation and consolidation of the Students Services (Financial Aid, Business Office, Bursar, and Registrar) into a one-stop-shop to welcome parents and students into Lupton Hall. Built in 1920, Lupton Hall and its carillon bells are situated at the heart of the Oglethorpe campus.