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1640 Meeting Street Road, Suite 202
Charleston, SC, 29405
United States

8437622222

For 70 years, Liollio has provided sustainable architecture, interior design, and historic preservation for public projects. We are an award-winning architecture firm located in Charleston, SC, who value subtle & restrained design, rooted in context, culture & collaboration

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Filtering by Tag: SouthCarolina

National Preservation Month: Celebrating USC's South Caroliniana Library

Mez Joseph

May is National Preservation Month, celebrating the nation's heritage through historic places. As we reflect on this, Liollio would like to congratulate the University of South Carolina on completing the restoration of the South Caroliniana Library, c.1840 — one of the premier research archives and special collections repositories in South Carolina and the Southeast region.

It's striking how personal much of USC’s library collections are: Mary Boykin Chesnut’s Civil War-era diaries, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s walking cane, Pat Conroy’s side-by-side shotgun, Ron McNair’s personal effects as an African American astronaut who died aboard the Challenger. Bringing these artifacts into public view is our greatest joy with this project, and that joy is amplified by the beauty of the restored Bulfinch Reading Room.

For more information about South Caroliniana Library’s history, visit USC’s University Libraries website.
Photography // Keith Isaacs // @keithisaacsphoto // isaacsphoto.com

IN HONOR OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2024, WE REFLECT ON HISTORIC PENN CENTER

Mez Joseph

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.

Panelists Say Recession Created Pent-Up Demand For Projects

Mez Joseph

Principal Dinos Liollio joined panelists at the Charleston Regional Business Journal's Power Breakfast last Thursday. Panelists discussed how the Lowcountry seems to have recovered from the recession and is now seeing the effects of pent-up demand for capital projects.

From Charleston Regional Business Journal
By Liz Segrist

Photo: Kim McManus

Several years after the recession, construction is booming and cranes are looming over new developments throughout Charleston.

The demand for buildings in the multifamily, residential, commercial, higher education, health care and mixed-use segments remains high as the region’s population grows, according to several panelists at the Charleston Regional Business Journal’s Power Breakfast on Thursday in North Charleston.

“Charleston has been so blessed,” said Dinos Liollio, principal of Liollio Architecture.  “We have been greatly insulated — if not isolated to some extent — from the recession that the country as a whole has felt. ... I think what we’re seeing now is all of the pent-up demand that has been created over the last five to six years as a result of the down economy. We are seeing it in higher ed, particularly now that so many people can go forward with their capital campaigns.”

Janette Alexander, a design and construction project manager for Charleston County, said she believes Charleston is out of the recession, although she said the region did not reach the same depths of economic crisis as other cities.

“We were very, very busy pre-recession and it does feel like we’re back and beyond that,” said Alexander, also a member of Charleston’s Board of Architectural Review. “Beyond the dam bursting of pent-up work that needed to happen, it seems like there is a lot of optimism on where Charleston is going.”

Chappy McKay, development vice president and partner at Trident Construction in Charleston, said the Lowcountry is “somewhat in a sprint between cycles.”

Although he has seen a lot of need for new construction in the last two years, he said some segments are slowing down. A somewhat muffled economy is buoyed by the region’s manufacturing sector, tech industries and the region’s ability to attract new businesses and residents, McKay said.

Melissa Polutta, owner of Trash Gurl LLC, a waste management business, said Charleston’s ability to draw new industry, tourists and residents enabled many construction companies to get back on their feet post-recession.

Her company, which she co-founded with her husband, Jeff, in 2009, has expanded with new services and new projects, including work on Volvo Cars’ new automotive campus under construction in Berkeley County.

Phillip Ford, executive vice president of Charleston Home Builders Association, said permits are up and demand is strong for new housing and residential communities.

Ford said the region faces a major challenge regarding adequate infrastructure — such as more highway capacity and improved roads — to handle the growth.

Finding enough skilled workers to meet the region’s housing needs is another major hurdle for the homebuilding and construction industries.

“Our concern is can we keep up with demand? There is a lack of trained labor. We can’t find anyone to frame houses or plumb houses,” Ford said. “So you can sell houses, but if you can’t build them, that’s a problem. Selling them is not a problem. Building them is, at the moment.”

Visit the CRBJ article here.