OUR COMPANY OUR WORK STRADA STREET TALK CONTACT Fashion and Textiles Futures Center 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 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. Recognition PRESS PhilaU Today: PhilaU Establishes Fashion and Textiles Futures Center Design Philadelphia: The Thread Starts Here: From Fiber to Fashion presented by Philadelphia University Kanbar College of Design, Engineering and Commerce: Fashion and Textiles Futures Center “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 Related Projects Offices PITTSBURGH STUDIO 611 William Penn Place Suite 700 Pittsburgh, PA 15219 p: 412.263.3800 f: 412.471.5704 info@stradallc.com PHILADELPHIA STUDIO 325 Chestnut Street Suite 909 Philadelphia, PA 19106 p: 215.440.0190 f: 215.440.0197 TRIANGLE STUDIO 1011 South Hamilton Rd Suite 201 Chapel Hill, NC 27517 p: 919.521.8022 Search this site Get quarterly e-news Email Address First Name Last Name Company