Architects Sketch Q House To Life

by Aliyya Swaby | Sep 12, 2014 7:57 am

A two-story central atrium exhibiting community artwork and artifacts. Two child development activity rooms for young people. A teaching kitchen to host cooking classes. A rooftop patio with herb gardens for seniors. A music recording studio adjacent a teen lounge. A half-court gymnasium.

Local architects Regina Winters and Kenneth Boroson showed these features and more in a presentation of preliminary plans for the rebirth of Dixwell Community Q House.

Community members gathered in Wexler Grant Schools auditorium Thursday night responded favorably to the plans and eagerly offered suggestions for new programs and design elements.

We heard you, said Winters, whose company Zared Enterprises was hired to design the center, together with Kenneth Boroson Architects. The architects worked off of a site, a budget and a list of things the community wanted, she said.

The results included design elements tailored to different portions of the community, from kids to seniors, and activities ranging from socializing to skills training.

They did an excellent job of capturing it, said Jacqueline Bracey, the chairwoman of the Concerned Citizens for the Greater New Haven Dixwell Community Q House. She has led the campaign to reopen the center for more than 10 years.

Winters and Boroson proposed a set of symbols to decorate the Q House that would represent the heritage and hard work of the people who fought to re-build it. The design for the Q is a set of concentric circles the inner circle represents family and the outer circle represents house. Together, it literally represents community, Winters said.

The Q House on Dixwell Avenue served as an anchor for the black community through much of the last century, a home away from home for local kids. The 1924 settlement house closed in 2013 after running out of money. The state approved $1 million in March to hire an architect and engineer for the centers pre-development phase, after spending $40,000 for a feasibility study last year. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is expected to deliver around state bonding money to have the center built.

Mayor Toni Harp made revamping the Q House a cornerstone of her 2013 election campaign.

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Architects Sketch Q House To Life