Strada means “street” in Italian. Streets matter to us. They’re the fundamental infrastructure of our cities and the core of our civic lives. They’re the connections between buildings, people, and public spaces. This is why we’re so inspired by them and it’s a shared commitment to these values that brought our principals together. Just as people mingle on city streets, our office is a place where we freely exchange ideas, challenging and inspiring one another to create exceptional work.
Sustainability is fundamentally about having the humility to use only what we need, live within our means, and let the specific climate and ecosystem of our region inform our daily lives. It lies in the humble acknowledgement of mistakes, and the sacrifice to change our way of life.
Movable display panels and natural light add up to ideal critique spaces
A student studies a textile created by the computerized jacquard loom
Corridor, before and after
Studio, before
Bright, well-equipped studio space feels alive with student projects
Shelves of yarns divide student looms from spaces for class meetings and critiques
Students review samples created by the knitting machines
Enhanced spaces for a leading design program
Services
Architecture
Interior Design
Details
CLIENT
Philadelphia University
LOCATION
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
SIZE
14,000 SF
SCOPE
Architectural Engineering
About this project
Philadelphia University’s new Fashion and Textiles Futures Center celebrates the history of this premier program while encouraging active, collaboration-based learning, research, and practice. The design for the 14,000 SF project was a collaboration between faculty, administration, and the Strada-led design team, to create spaces to advance prestigious fashion and textile design programs with an emphasis on active learning. Student designs are now featured throughout the facility, interspersed among open design studios, fabrication labs, and computer-aided design facilities. The flexible learning environment promotes partnerships with industry leaders that connect students to new career opportunities.
The Futures Center is a fresh and transparent environment where layers of design, production, and product display overlap and inform each other. Exposing the original high bay industrial structure created a unifying shell for the design studios, production labs, and product displays to promote a more active and engaging workspace. Sliding glass partitions and borrowed exterior daylight allow visibility from the exterior through all three-zones of the space. Once-dark corridors are now a vibrant, marketable tour of student work in lighted display cases with views into the studios beyond. A suspended metal grid provides an adaptable framework for lighting, suspended sliding pin-up panels and movable hanging displays for reviewing projects. Wheeled storage modules allow long-term projects to be stowed and moved aside during studio open houses. The Center provides accessible views for all who enter, providing space for connections, insights, and knowledge to emerge naturally.
“The Fashion and Textiles Futures Center creates excellent educational opportunities for our students, modeling industry transdisciplinary trends and positioning PhilaU as the epicenter for future thinking in the fashion and textile realms.”
– Marcia Weiss, the Harold Neuman Textile Design Chair and Director of Philadelphia University textile design programs
