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Filtering by Category: Regional
Don’t mis Charleston Moves Mobility Month Events in May! Liollio is sponsoring the kick-off event this Thursday, May 2, from 5-8 pm, "Safe Streets on Tap” at Munkle Brewing Company - 1513 Meeting Street Rd, 29405. For more info visit the event.
Construction has begun on the new Discovery Place nature museum situated in Charlotte, NC’s Freedom Park. The reimagined nature haven, designed by Liollio Architecture and Hood Design Studio and constructed by Rodgers Builders, will be a world-class environmental education center serving the Carolinas. Founded in 1947 as the Children’s Nature Museum, Discovery Place Nature has been a staple in Charlotte’s education and cultural community for over 75 years. The museum conjures curiosity and activates the imagination through educational experiences that help us connect to the natural world. The new museum will be developed at the current location, providing a complete reinvention of the first nature museum in the Southeast.
The project is a public-private partnership between Mecklenburg County, who owns the property and facility, and Discovery Place, a non-profit leader for science education in the U.S. Liollio is leading the design, collaborating with Hood Design Studio—led by Charlotte native Walter Hood. Hood Design Studio is well-known for its award-winning landscape design, public art, and installation art, and have recently completed the International African American Museum in Charleston. Liollio has built a reputation of design through community engagement and collaboration, and their work is rooted in the particulars of place, people, and landscape.
“Mecklenburg County and Discovery Place are thrilled to have such a talented and environmentally focused team on board to bring a new future for Discovery Place Nature to life,” said Catherine Wilson Horne, President and CEO of Discovery Place Inc. “We can’t wait to see the vision formed by Liollio and Hood, two organizations with deep Carolina roots, come to life for one of Charlotte’s most beloved and important institutions. The new design will allow us to connect with the community in an elevated way, including signature environment educational experiences and programming for all ages.”
“We are honored to be collaborating with Discovery Place and Mecklenburg County on the new nature museum, which will combine Discovery Place’s capacity for innovation and education in science, nature and design with the incredible setting of Freedom Park,” said Jennifer Charzewski, Principal at Liollio Architecture. “For the Liollio and Hood Design Studio team, this has been an exciting opportunity to create an engaging and creative place for residents and visitors for generations to come.”
Hood Design Studio Principal Paul Peters notes that “the public gardens embody the cultural use of landscape for pollination, stormwater management, performance, and leisure. Elevating the visitor experience is a canopy walk, threading through the forest’s upper layers, featuring two distinctive treehouses that provide transformative interactions with the natural world. The museum will not be so much as place as it is a portal.”
The museum design is intentionally quiet, receding into the site and acting as a canvas for the incredible natural surroundings and exhibits. The entrance faces Little Sugar Creek Greenway, with a free public garden filled with wildlife and native plants that invites the community to connect with and explore the wonders of our natural world. A double height lobby leads to multiple gallery spaces, designed for all ages, with live animals and interactives focusing on the Piedmont, along with multiple classrooms and multi-purpose spaces. Bird-safe glass protects the forest residents while allowing multiple visual connection points for the immersive experiences inside and out. Nature trails lead visitors through the forest offering fresh perspectives on the forest environment through demonstration pavilions, forest moments, creek interactions, and a canopy walk.
For more information about Discovery Place, visit discoveryplace.org.
Penn School was founded in 1862 as a school for formerly enslaved people. The school established a commitment to Black education, community welfare, and cultural heritage that has remained strong for over 150 years. Penn School functioned as an educational institution, health clinic, farm bureau, a catalyst for community action, and a repository for preserving St. Helena Island’s unique Gullah heritage and written history.
Original Building of the Penn School, St. Helena Island, SC (From the Penn School Collection)
At the turn of the century the school’s curriculum was revised to follow the Hampton-Tuskegee model of Black education - training students in masonry, carpentry, domestic arts, and midwifery. The school closed in 1948, but the community service and cultural preservation originated by its founders flourished through Penn Community Services, Inc., organized in 1951. Penn opened South Carolina’s first day care center for African Americans, provided a community health care clinic and a Teen Canteen.
The first basket teacher at the Penn Schoo, lSt. Helena Island, SC (From the Penn School Collection)
A class in mending & sewing at the Penn School, St. Helena Island, SC (From the Penn School Collection)
Throughout the 1960s, Penn Center sponsored and hosted interracial conferences on civil rights organized by groups including the NAACP, CORE, SNCC, Southern Regional Council, South Carolina Council on Human Relations, World Peace Foundation, and the Peace Corps. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) held citizenship education classes at Penn, taught by iconic organizers Andrew Young, Dorothy Cotton, Bernice Robinson, and Septima P. Clark. Andrew Young introduced Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Penn Center. King, his SCLC lieutenants, and countless unnamed activists met with the SCLC at Penn five times between 1964 and 1967.
At Penn Center in 1966, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Joan Baez, Ira Sandpearl, & Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Photo Credit: Bob Fitch)
In November 1966, during a formal speech he gave at Penn Center, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. connected the long struggle for African American civil rights to the neglected fight for economic equality. In September 1974, the historic campus, Brick Church, and surrounding areas were listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In subsequent decades, Penn Center continued to serve as a site for church and organizational retreats, a training center for various organizations, and an educational site for Black history and culture. In January 2017, President Barack Obama designated the Beaufort National Landmark District, Camp Saxton Site, Penn Historic District and the Old Beaufort Firehouse as the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park under management of the National Park Service. In 2021, the Penn Center was added to the African American Civil Rights Network (AACRN), as well as the Reconstruction Era National Historic Network. For more information on The Penn Center visit www.penncenter.com.
Liollio Architecture is honored to have had the privilege to design the St. Helena Branch Library which houses a Gullah Geechee Special Collections area and is contiguous to the National Historic Landmark campus of Penn Center.
St. Helena Branch Library at Penn Center, St. Helena Island, SC (Photo Credit: Richard Leo Johnson)
For more information regarding National Park Service’s Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor (established by Congress in 2006), please visit: www.nps.gov/places/gullah-geechee-cultural-heritage-corridor.htm.
Liollio will be observing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, January 15. This is a day for giving back to the community and observing the holiday in a way that is meaningful.
MLK Day is the only federal holiday designated as a National Day of Service, to encourage all Americans to volunteer to improve their communities, as we celebrate and carry forward Dr. King’s great legacy. Our team will join the SC Aquarium for the MLK Day of Service Litter Sweep & Food Drive on Monday.
For more info, visit: https: americorps.gov/serve/volunteer/mlk-day
For information regarding MLK day events: ywcagc.org/mlk-celebration.html
We have much to be thankful for - the ability to pursue our passions and doing what we love, our clients, professional partners, consultants, community, each other…the list is long! We would not be who we are without you. We are grateful for the connections, opportunities, partnerships and support we’ve been blessed with this year. The Liollio team wishes you all the happiest of holidays!
Congratulations to First Baptist Church of Charleston SC for being honored with two AIA Awards - an AIA South Atlantic Region 2023 Merit Award & an AIA South Carolina 2023Merit Award - for the new Education Building! This new structure on the campus of First Baptist Church and School in Charleston replaced a non-historic existing building located approximately mid-block between Meeting and Church streets. The building includes offices, classrooms, and a Fellowship Hall with a commercial kitchen, all of which are shared by the Church and School. The building is simply built of economical materials: brick veneer over metal studs and a structural steel frame with storefront and curtainwall glazing. The massing of the building is broken down into two wings to reduce the overall scale of the building in relation to the existing historic context. The design includes a reduced footprint compared to the existing building and utilizes a 12’-8” floor to floor height to better integrate the building into its context. The new education building works with the c.1822 Robert Mills-designed sanctuary to frame an active courtyard. Together, the new building, the courtyard, and the sanctuary represent the three pillars of Baptist faith: Education, Fellowship, and Worship. It also creates connections between three communities: the religious community of the church, the educational community of the school, and the historic community of Charleston’s South of Broad neighborhood.
Your friends at Liollio would like to wish you and your loved ones a very Happy Thanksgiving!
The Liollio office will be closed Thursday, November 23 and Friday, November 24 in observance of the holiday.
The ribbon cutting for the University of South Carolina's South Caroliniana Library took place in Columbia recently and was a huge success! The library is our nation's oldest freestanding academic library and underwent meticulous renovation. Liollio is honored to have been part of the team who helped preserve this important and historic building for generations to come! Learn more about South Caroliniana Library, which houses the stories and the treasures of our state – from its leaders to its ordinary citizens. go.sc.edu/CarolinianaReopening
We are honored to have been part of the team for the new Dorchester County Library & Media Center in North Charleston. We were excited to attend the Ribbon Cutting ceremony last week, and the event was a huge success. Congratulations to Dorchester County Library, Dorchester County Government, Dorchester County School District, our amazing team and partners at Edifice, the City of North Charleston, and the greater community!
Liollio is excited to announce that Richland Library Ballentine received an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Charleston Merit Award for New Construction at the 2022 AIA Charleston Design + Service Awards last month. Congratulations to our clients and friends at Richland Library!
Richland Library Ballentine is a suburban public library that creates a wooded escape to support an active local community of artists and craftspeople. The library provides a connection to the outdoors that includes an artist’s corner for quiet, meditative work surrounded by nature. The central public space is seen as a living room, a linear space which is oriented away from civilization and culminates in a framed view of an undeveloped woodscape. The living room is punctuated by three public art works, including a wisteria tree which drapes playfully over a children’s reading area, crocheted by library patrons.
Liollio is excited to announce that the Dorchester County Ashley River Park Event Pavilion received an American Institute of Architects (AIA) South Atlantic Region Merit Award for New Construction at the 2022 ASPIRE Conference in Asheville NC. The award-winning project also received an Honor Award for New Construction at the 2022 AIA Charleston Design + Service Awards last month. Congratulations to our clients and friends at Dorchester County Parks and Recreation, as well as, our Ashley River Park partners, SeamonWhiteside!
Liollio, in association with SeamonWhiteside, developed the new Ashley River Park for Dorchester County SC. The new 85-acre park features many amenities, including walking trails, fishing pier, dog park, interactive play foundation, playgrounds, open lawn, gatehouse, picnic shelters, event pavilion, restroom building and outfitters center. The event pavilion was designed for a wide variety of events, including family reunions, corporate events, weddings, music venue, etc. The outfitters building includes the park offices, tenant space for the future ropes course company, large conference room, a screen porch for school group programming and public restrooms. The team worked together to integrate the buildings and landscape. The Park has been warmly embraced by the community since its grand opening in March 2022.
2022 Aspire Design Awards Winners Winners were revealed at ASPIRE in Asheville NC in September. To view the awards gallery, click on the award image above.
Liollio is excited to share that the Charleston County Public Library Support Center received an American Institute of Architects (AIA) South Atlantic Region Merit Award for Adaptive Reuse at the 2022 ASPIRE Conference in Asheville NC. Congratulations to our clients and friends at Charleston County Public Library!
As part of the Charleston County Public Library’s referendum for 21st-century libraries, the Support Center relocated the CCPL Administration, training and conference facilities, and central Automated Materials Handling to a consolidated facility. A renovation and interior upfit to an existing industrial commerce facility, this project included administrative offices, training classrooms, conference rooms, employee support areas, central IT, library cataloging and acquisitions, central supply storage, Automated Materials Handling, and distribution to all branches. The renovation also provided innovative solutions to dry floodproofing, daylighting, and upgrades to the existing building.
2022 Aspire Design Awards Winners Winners were revealed at ASPIRE in Asheville NC in September. To view the awards gallery, click on the award image above.
Liollio Architecture’s partnership with Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and Mecklenburg County NC is featured in the latest Library Journal article “Future-Proofing Libraries Through Flexible Design” by Jessica Levine. Be sure to check out the coverage of South County Regional Library!
We are also excited to share that South County Library received an American Institute of Architects (AIA) South Atlantic Region Merit Award for Interior Architecture at the 2022 ASPIRE Conference in Asheville NC. Congratulations to our visionary clients!
“As a civic building, a library should support a community’s needs and also represent that community’s identity, aspirations, or unique sense of place.”
2022 Aspire Design Awards Winners Winners were revealed at ASPIRE in Asheville NC in September. To view the awards gallery, click on the award image above.
Thank you to the Children’s Museum of the Lowcountry for hosting the Liollio team and allowing us to help revitalize the Museum’s garden space for this year’s Trident United Way Day of Caring. We loved helping out!
For over 20 years, Trident United Way has hosted the largest single day of community service in the Tri-County area on Day of Caring thanks to employers, teams and neighbors coming together to make a difference. Now they have tripled the impact from Day to Days of Caring in an effort to engage more volunteers, provide more flexibility for completing projects and deliver more impact to our Tri-County! For more information on how you can help support their efforts, please visit www.tuw.org/daysofcaring
Charleston Moves' 6th annual Pedal & Panache, presented by Bike Law and Morrison Yard Residences, is tomorrow! This is Charleston Moves' single largest annual fundraiser, and they need our support. Please buy your tickets, invite your friends, and join in for a fun evening to power our safe streets movement. You can purchase tickets here.
Boss's Day (also written as Bosses Day or Boss' Day) is generally observed on or around October 16th in the United States. It is a day for employees to do something kind and heartfelt for supervisors as a way of saying thank you. We celebrated National Boss’s Day at Liollio this morning with a breakfast provided by the studio. Each team member brought in homemade breakfast dishes, pastries and more. Cheers to all the great bosses out there!
PechaKucha, which means the sound of conversation in Japanese, was first conceived by Tokyo architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, who were seeking a way to encourage student presenters to use PowerPoint in a more organized and succinct manner. PechaKucha has spread to over 135 cities around the world as an informal forum for creative people to meet, network and show their work in public. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for just 20 seconds, giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.
PechaKucha 40 took place at Charleston Music Hall on Thursday, September 15, 2022 and featured presenters Candace Patterson, Will Kiser, Bintou N’Daw, Kalyn Oyer, Chase Quinn, and many others, including Liollio Principal Jennifer Charzewski. Check out all the presentations on Charleston Music Hall’s Youtube page.
Charleston’s creative community returns to Charleston Music Hall for PechaKucha 40 on September 15! Liollio Principal, Jennifer Graham Charzewski, will be presenting how the creative process is driven by collaboration.
Tickets on Sale Now! https://www.charlestonmusichall.com/event/pechakucha-40/
The South Carolina Historic Preservation Awards were presented at the State House on July 13, 2022 by SC Governor Henry McMaster and First Lady Peggy McMaster. The awards were sponsored by the Office of the Governor, the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, and Preservation South Carolina. Liollio Architecture’s project, The Brick House, McConnells: Historic Brattonsville, was honored with a 2022 South Carolina Historic Preservation Stewardship Award. The Liollio team has great respect and appreciation for our State’s history and the preservation of it’s historic landmarks. Liollio is honored to be part of the talented team of individuals who have united to revitalize and preserve this historic building. Congratulations to our team and to all of this year’s award recipients for their amazing work!
For more information about the projects/recipients and images from the awards presentation visit Preservation South Carolina’s 2022 awards page. And click here for a local ABC News story on the awards.
Governor’s Award: Dr. Wenonah Haire, Rock Hill: Catawba Nation Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and Executive Director of the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project
Preservation Service Award (project/recipient): Grace Chapel Baptist Cemetery Project, Charleston : The South Carolina History Room, Charleston County Public Library
Stewardship Awards (property/recipient):
Strawberry Chapel, Moncks Corner: Strawberry Chapel Vestry, St. John’s Berkeley Parish
South Carolina Governor’s Mansion, Columbia: The South Carolina Department of Administration
The Brick House, McConnells: Historic Brattonsville – York Culture & Heritage Museums
John Mark Verdier House, Beaufort: Historic Beaufort Foundation
164 King Street, Charleston: Charleston Library Society
Preservation Honor Awards (project/recipients):
106 E. Benson Street, Anderson: Danny Walker; Daniel Builders; and Kyle Campbell, Preservation South, LLC
1639-1645 Main Street, Columbia: Sara Middleton Styles & Greg Middleton, Smoked; Rogers Lewis Jackson Mann & Quinn, LLC; Scott Garvin, Garvin Design Group; and Lee Mashburn, Mashburn Construction Company
Savage Craft Ale Works, West Columbia: Andrew Baumgartner, Baumer Holdings, LLC; Mark Hood, Amanda Harter, Dean Wilson, Hood Construction; and Wes Lyles, Studio2LR
Monarch Building/ Bank of Camden: Laurel & Westley Parks, P&P Investment Partners; Scott Lambert, Lambert Architecture & Construction Services; Rich Spencer, Lambert Architecture & Construction Services
Woodside Cotton Mill, Greenville: Randy Moore, CG Woodside Partners, LLC; Ken Betsch, Betsch Associates; and Chris Norris, Caldwell Constructors
