OUR WRITING CENTER WINS GENSLER’S Community Impact Award!
“Chapter 510 could be a model for what other
communities can do and should be doing;
to really bring people together…in a creative way that’s going to allow them to tap into who they are.”
- Charity Chandler-Cole, CEO, CASA of Los Angeles
We are elated to announce that the design and build of our new home at Swan’s Market has won Gensler’s Community Impact Award in the category of Next Generation. Gensler is an international architecture firm and designed our writing center. They enlisted a panel of outside designers, leaders, and change-makers to review and select this year’s winners from all their community impact projects around the world. To be one of them is truly an honor.
We worked with a magical group of architects at Gensler Oakland and Gensler SF, who designed both our Writers' Room within Oakland’s Westlake Middle School and our new center within Swan’s Market. Between 2018 and 2021, Gensler architects and designers gave their time pro-bono. They listened to our youth and families, followed the lead of our artists, went through multiple design iterations with our staff, provided detailed blueprints for our contractor, and even helped us source materials, fixtures, and furniture, much of it donated from their vendors and clients.
Our gratitude to Gensler truly has no bounds! Beyond being award winning (humble brag), our center is beautiful, colorful, inspiring, modular, and functional for all our needs from intimate workshops to events!
Additional shine and gratitude to those who inspired Gensler’s design and brought it to life:
Bay Area artist Simon Tran whose art in our Writers’ Room inspired our brand and Gensler’s design
IDW Studio who created our new brand pro bono (brand colors, shapes, typography, and logo) & designed our facade
Our ever-flexible, open, and patient contractor Red Boot Construction and kind, hard working crew
Girls Garage for designing and building our stage (and whose past projects also influenced Gensler’s design)
Our previous Creative Director Perla Yasmeen Meléndez
East bay’s women-owned Planted Design studio who made our moss ceiling
And all our staff and volunteers who helped us bring this space to life!
And to the other Community Impact Award winners. We are humbled to be in such good company.
