WORKS’ mission is to provide appropriate an array of services to its residents, ensuring they are able to access healthy food and receive benefits, health care, job training, and, as appropriate, case management and substance-use programs.

Inverting the concept of a jail, our team sought to create an environment where health and growth drove the design program. We wanted to celebrate regeneration at all scales, starting with the building’s adaptive reuse and extending to renewable-energy systems and programs that invited the interaction of many demographics.

Our vision for the former jail building included an urban agriculture college and high school with production farms, a health and wellness center, child care and adult day care, 47 market-rate live-work lofts, creative offices, a gastropub, and a rooftop space for dining and events. Adjacent to the existing building would be 66 units of newly constructed affordable housing.