We are here to help.

A cultural organization’s building is both a resource and a liability.  It houses the collections, the people and the activities that enrich a community, making the world a better place.  But the building then shapes patterns of activity and behavior that prescribe how the institution functions.  What if a beloved building no longer works?   Maybe the collection has grown, or it comprises new media, or the staff and their processes are drastically different from those that shaped the original design.  Maybe decades of deferred maintenance have come due.  Or, maybe the community has changed, and it now needs something else from the organization.

 

Our Services

HCW guides cultural organizations in reimagining their campuses and buildings as platforms for activities that serve their communities, collections and staff.  Looking at physical space with new eyes, we search for ways to free the institution from its habits and consider how change can catalyze new ways of working, circulating, and seeing.  We develop cost models with the understanding that resources are scarce, that early budgets are critical to the feasibility of a project and that the building is only one investment an institution maintains.

HCW explores each client’s unique character, listening to stakeholders, analyzing physical space and developing ideas that bring people together.  

We focus on what the institution needs most, creating ideas for discussion that draw participants into the process to make holistic, functional and meaningful recommendations for change:

  • Master Plans that build consensus and find new directions for stakeholders and the communities they serve

  • Feasibility Studies that balance transformation and costs

  • Designs that respect and accommodate the character and context of an institution.

Our experience at institutions across the country includes new, sustainable approaches to the design of places critically important to an institution’s success:

  • Arrival and entry

  • Galleries and exhibition halls

  • Collections storage and work space

  • Education and learning spaces