Arts Estuary 1024 is the new headquarters for the National Performance Network, a non-profit that “is a group of diverse cultural organizers, including artists, working to create meaningful partnerships and to provide leadership that enables the practice and public experience of the performing arts in the United States,” and also serves as a co-working space for several other organizations with an Arts Education focus. The two-story wood building originally operated as a funeral home with a one story slab-on-grade embalming room in the rear. The main entry reorients to a rebuilt common room located on the footprint of this embalming room via a courtyard encompassed by historic masonry garden walls. The courtyard connects from the street and from an adjoining parking lot entered from the opposite side of the block. The rear addition comprises the new main garden entrance and a meeting room with a kitchenette as a social space within the offices. Elevators and enclosed stairs were added in conjunction, to improve accessibility and safety of the original structure.

A sequence of increasingly intense and vibrant citrus colors leads from the street face to the rear addition, and continues on the interior of the building as accent walls in the offices and meeting rooms. The primary hallway was developed as a gallery-style space for display, and various other interior enhancements were added, including salvaged porch boards with a beautiful patina from a nearby historic house that we were concurrently renovating. The architectural project was jointly funded by the owner of the building and NPN, as the new long term tenant, with work undertaken concurrently by the same contractor.