The Petaluma Arts Center opened to the public in August 2008. The location, at a historic train depot, brings new life to a building that has been vacant for decades. The facilities include two galleries, classrooms, and a resource center for all arts in the area. The public reception area is formed by a spiral wall form that holds three dimensional art. The spiral, found in biological forms from trees, shells, leaves and snowflakes to manmade creations for thousands of years, represents the source of creativity.
What’s Green: The interior has been adapted for public use by seismically upgrading it for safety, retaining as much of the existing materials as feasible and minimizing waste to the landfill by salvaging and reuse. The historic concrete floor and roof trusses have been preserved and are visibly expressed. The interior redwood wallboards were reused for baseboards. The windows and industrial doors were made operable for passive ventilation. To achieve maximum utility, the interior walls were minimized to allow for flexible and potentially unanticipated uses. All new structural lumber is FSC certified and the previously un-insulated walls are now filled with recycled blue jeans. The finishing touch is zero VOC paint and low VOC stains on all interior surfaces.
Client: Petaluma, California – Adaptive reuse of a 1923 train storage building to a community arts center
Area: 5,000 square feet
Cost: $700,000
