Join us on Wednesday, March 27th for a tour of the Norfolk State University Innovation Center on Main Street. Located in the heart of Norfolk’s business district, the center was created in partnership between the Norfolk State University Research & Innovation Foundation and the City of Norfolk to create a space to better connect students, faculty, and alumni with the greater business community. Because there is no defined end user, the Center is a model for flexibility and serve many purposes. It includes small and large conference areas that can be reconfigured many different ways. The space also includes individual break-out spaces and collaborative work areas, informal sitting and lounge areas, a catering kitchen/break room and four touch-down office spaces. Work Program Architects and Norfolk State University will be speaking about the center. A special thank you to Work Program Architects for sponsoring! As always, Commercial Coffee is free-of-charge so please click the “Register Now” link to confirm your attendance. Paid parking at Commercial Place Garage or on-street metered parking are available.
Virginian-Pilot article By Briana Adhikusuma, Staff Writer
IPConfigure, Inc. is a video surveillance and research and development software company based out of Norfolk, VA. When they came to us with the idea of restoring the old Dubin Metals Building on Bowdens Ferry Road we jumped at the opportunity. Here are a few images of the existing conditions and proposed future renovations. This is a historic tax credit project with the original building constructed around 1938 for acetylene gas manufacturing for World War Two! The subsequent additions yield a total building footprint of over 28,000 SF.
IPConfigure plans to utilize a portion of the building as their new headquarters, and they are looking for tenants to take advantage of the large outdoor space and help support their revitalization efforts in the area. This is a very exciting project in the Lambert’s Point area and we are proud to be a part of it!IPConfigure Interiors…the original loading dock canopy welcomes visitors into the building. Skylights and new light fixtures cast a warm glow on the reception area when filtered through new wood slats installed in the steel canopy. Adjustable height desks make it comfortable for employees to sit or stand while they work. A new steel staircase leads up to the original tower. What once was a testing ground for acetylene gas will soon be a conference room, break room, and rooftop terrace. It is really exciting for us that this property sits right on the @ertnorfolk
presented by popblossom 208 East Plume St, Norfolk, VA 23510 Opening: 6:30-8:30pm, Friday, Feb 15 Showing: Feb 15—March 22, 2019
popblossom is pleased to present, ARCHITECTURE OF THE HEART, MIND & SOUL, an exhibition of selected works by Robin and Julia Rogers. Please join us for the Opening Event, Friday, February 15th from 6:30 – 8:30pm at WPA Studio + Gallery, located in The Monticello Arcade in Downtown Norfolk, VA. Glass artists Julia and Robin Rogers share a passion for sculpture and molten glass. Working together since 2001, and creative partners since 2010, the husband and wife team collaborate on every aspect of the creative process.
Julia and Robin have selected works from three different bodies of work in which to examine three distinct, but intrinsically linked concepts—heart, mind and soul—in an effort “to reveal a metaphorical interior of ideas, emotions, and mystery.” According to the artists, “We are driven by the mind and guided by the heart, but the subtle inner workings remain, to a certain extent, unknown.”
Robin Rogers is the Manager and Program Director of the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio and Julia Rogers teaches Glass for Virginia Wesleyan University and Tidewater Community College. Julia and Robin’s sculptures have been featured in numerous exhibitions and are held in private and museum collections.
presented by popblossom 208 East Plume St, Norfolk, VA 23510 Showing: Oct 12—Dec 28, 2018 Opening: 6:30-8:30pm, Friday, Oct 12
popblossom is pleased to present, Vegetable Valley, recent works by Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann. Please join us for the Opening Event, Friday, October 12 from 6:30 – 8:30pm at WPA Studio + Gallery, located in The Monticello Arcade in Downtown Norfolk, VA.
With roots in the traditions of Chinese landscape painting, DC based artist, Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann’s paintings and installations evolve a fantastic, abstract vision of the natural world. Monumentally scaled, Mann chooses to paint her lush, densely patterned landscapes on paper, a tradition in Chinese painting. Mann regards paper as “a medium of vulnerability and expansiveness, susceptible to crease and tear as well as to collage and collation;” these qualities are palpable throughout her large exuberant compositions, layered with paint and paper and brimming with motifs of vining ribbons and delicate flora entwined with broad meandering bands of color.
Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann is a graduate of Browne University in Providence, RI and the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD where she received her MFA in 2009. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies. Her paintings have been widely exhibited in the US and abroad and are held in private and public collections. Mann is currently an instructor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Join us on Wednesday, August 29th to hear about the most iconic riverfront trail in the country, Elizabeth River Trail. This 10.5 mile trail stretches along Norfolk’s waterfront and includes some of the City’s most beloved treasures, including Waterside Marina, Town Point Park, The Pagoda, and Nauticus. We will meet at the pier BEHIND Nauticus. Attendees will need to walk down the path between Half Moone Center and Nauticus to get to the pier. PACE bikes will be available for those interested in riding the trail at the end of the tour. The PACE bike share app is required for use. If you do not have the app downloaded, please visit the Apple App Store and Google Play. Use promo code SOCIALCNFK for a free credit for first time users.
Special Thanks to Work Program Architects for sponsoring this event!
Parking is available at three nearby paid parking garages: Town Point Garage, West Plume Garage, or Main Street Garage.
A ribbon cutting on August 30th will realize the last piece of an exciting concept for downtown Norfolk’s Selden Market.
Already a vibrant place for up-and-coming entrepreneurs to develop and test new ideas in retail, food and art, the historic space once known as the Selden Arcade now boasts the Slover Makerspace, where anyone with a Norfolk library card can manufacture dreams. The space is outfitted with eight 3D printers, a 75-watt laser cutter, 17 Singer sewing machines and several soldering stations. The Makerspace is adjacent to Slover Library.
WPA congratulates the Slover on the space. We are excited and proud to have been a part of the process to design this place for new imaginings!
After three days of lively charrettes, residents of Norfolk’s Tidewater Gardens community are closer to a new envisioned future.
WPA participated in the mid-July event for the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative HUD Grant with the City of Norfolk, NRHA, The Communities Group, Ray Gindroz, and the lead architect and planner, Torti Gallas + Partners.
Meeting at the Basilica of St. Mary’s, participants advanced a plan for the St. Paul’s Area Redevelopment Phase 1 that creates a framework for new development that meets the needs of the community. The next round of community input is expected in August.
The plan includes new street connections, flooding abatement and a range of housing options from mid-rise apartments to single family, along with an enlivened Church Street to include new retail.
This most recent charrette, as with all planning efforts for the community, is guided by seven planning principles:
– Create a park system to protect from flooding and provide recreation amenities
– Create a community-wide campus with educational opportunities for all ages
– Restore church Street as the heart of the community with shops, food stores, health and medical facilities
– Create pedestrian Scale connections to opportunities in the larger community
– Build a pattern of neighborhood streets and blocks to create a framework for a mixed-use, mixed income community
– Provide a diverse mix of residential development ranging from single-family and town homes to small and large scale apartments
– Provide employment opportunities at the edges of the community for residents
popblossom is pleased to present, WABI-SABI (Alternative Perspectives). Please join us for the Opening Event, Friday, July 6th from 6:30 – 8:30pm at WPA Studio + Gallery, located in The Monticello Arcade in Downtown Norfolk, VA.
Sculptor May Britton and popblossom’s Lorrie Saunders have come together in a collaborative effort to explore exhibition as medium. Seeking an alternative to the traditional mode of art and exhibition-making, Britton and Saunders blurred the lines between artist and curator by eliminating prescribed or defined roles—their goal, to create a co-authored and co-produced exhibition as a single work of art. With creative energies fused and armed with a non-traditional approach, Britton and Saunders thought it fitting to construct an installation inspired by an unconventional point of view—they settled on wabi-sabi—the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature.
Turning to the natural world for inspiration as well as material—wild grape vine and flowers—Britton and Saunders’ installation reflects the rustic simplicity of the wabi-sabi aesthetic while acknowledging beauty in imperfection.
May Britton is a fine artist whose figurative and abstract sculptures and site-specific installations have been exhibited widely with many works held in both public and private collections in the US and abroad. A registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-500), yogic philosophy and teachings continue to influence her life and approach to art-making.
Former gallery owner Lorrie Saunders is the founder and director of popblossom. She has curated over 50 successful exhibitions of various media by artists of regional, national and international acclaim and whose works are held in public, private, and museum collections.
popblossom is pleased to present THE ARCADE, selected works from the series, ITINERANT ARCHITECTURES, by Elizabeth Dorbad. Please join us for the Opening, Friday, April 6, 6:30-8:30pm at WPA Studio + Gallery, located in The Monticello Arcade in Downtown Norfolk, VA.
In the ongoing series, Itinerant Architectures, Elizabeth Dorbad ponders the impermanence and mutability of architecture while engaging the notion of architectural time. Using abandoned architecture as subject matter and material, Dorbad produces works across a range of media including, photography, drawing and video as well as sculpture created out of the rubble of discarded mobile home trailers.
Dorbad considers architecture a transient sculptural system and recreates the structural identities of buildings through what she calls, architectural intervention, “the direct actions of cutting, superimposing or adorning,” the resulting sculpture or installation is then captured in a photograph.
Based in San Francisco, Elizabeth Dorbad’s work has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries. Her global project, ITINERANT ARCHITECTURES, with iterations in Memphis, Baltimore, San Francisco, Oakland, Berlin, Kassel, New York, and Los Angeles, continues with the latest iteration, THE ARCADE, in Norfolk.
Join us on Wednesday, March 27th for a tour of the Norfolk State University Innovation Center on Main Street. Located in the heart of Norfolk’s business district, the center was created in partnership between the Norfolk State University Research & Innovation Foundation and the City of Norfolk to create a space to better connect students, faculty, and alumni with the greater business community. Because there is no defined end user, the Center is a model for flexibility and serve many purposes. It includes small and large conference areas that can be reconfigured many different ways. The space also includes individual break-out spaces and collaborative work areas, informal sitting and lounge areas, a catering kitchen/break room and four touch-down office spaces. Work Program Architects and Norfolk State University will be speaking about the center.
