A historic vocational school closed by the School District of Philadelphia in 2013, we are working to lovingly restore the building into a new, richly layered and constantly evolving center for creatives, small-businesses, non-profits, small-batch manufacturers and beyond. The project takes stock of the existing infrastructure (wood shops, culinary training kitchens, science labs and classrooms) t
o enable activity and affordability to create a revived place of making, training, learning and job creation in South Philly. Today over 60,000 square feet within the building is filled with jewelers, architects, furniture makers, fashion designers, milliners, product designers, artists, charitable organizations, a day care and even a local boxing club in the previously empty classrooms. The scale of the building - 340,000 square feet and an entire city block - means there is an opportunity for continued growth and the ability to accommodate a wide diversity and variety of users in spaces ranging from 200 to 25,000 square feet. This is a multi-phased project intended to evolve over time and therefore we are interested in how both the temporal and the permanent contribute to the building's evolution. We seek to apply a nimble and thoughtful multi-disciplinary development approach to drive the building's revitalization through a careful balance that considers commercial viability, impactful community engagement, and long-term outcomes. Bok is the recipient of the The 2016 Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance Award for the project's approach to adaptive re-use of a historic building.
