Pre-Design Awards Tour and Q&A – Golden Belt and WillowTree

Prior to the awards ceremony, join local designers who helped shape the Golden Belt complex for a walking tour to understand the unique issues they addressed to reposition the campus and create an integrated community enhancement for East Durham. During the tour, architect John Warasila, AIA, of Alliance Architecture, and his colleague Sarah Wilhelm will share strategies used to transform the campus and highlight construction issues specific to restoration work.

Complementing the big picture of adaptive reuse, Ana Bronson of Gensler will lead a tour of WillowTree demonstrating how the Gensler team leveraged the mill building’s existing character to build a design concept and singular experience for the global tech company.

• Participants will learn community engagement techniques for developing work/live/play environments that leverage existing
  building stock to revitalize urban neighborhoods.
• Participants will understand the considerations for using historic tax credits in facility planning.
• Participants will learn strategies for visioning sessions to define a workplace cultural vision and design strategies that reflect
  company goals and employee comfort.
• Participants will understand organizational strategies for workplace planning that promote collaboration and support individual
  excellence.