A new urban housing prototype – artist live-work space – is rapidly becoming an economic stimulus in emerging urban neighborhoods. Five artist live-work projects in Boston and Providence, each with a unique mix of unit types and commercial space, have presented design issues.
Acknowledging the creative community as a vital and transformative contribution to the urban fabric, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the Boston Redevelopment Authority have worked closely with other city agencies, including the Office of Cultural Affairs and the Department of Neighborhood Development, to retain and create spaces for artists. A survey of 10,000 artists became the basis for development initiatives and projects regarding Boston’s artist community. An outcome of the survey, the Artist Space Initiative promotes spaces permanently dedicated to artists through deed restrictions or similar legal mechanisms and that offer environments where artists combine their living and working space.
ICON architecture has been at the forefront of artist live-work housing since the redevelopment of a former rubber factory into “Brookside Artists Live-Work” in Jamaica Plain in 2002, and has since embarked on four other artist housing projects that span a wide range of program types.
Spencer James was one of 12 artists illegally living in studio spaces carved out of the former manufacturing plant, but with their landlord’s knowledge. When a developer purchased the property and began attempts to remove the artists as tenants, James and his neighbors took action and formed the Brookside LLC.
“I had been living there for 15 years and suddenly my neighbors and I were faced with eviction,” said James. The residents immediately turned to the city and received help from their city councillors, an affordable housing advocacy group, attorney Robert Shapiro and Menino. The new owner, who planned to develop the studios into condos, was forced to bring the units up to code and to negotiate with his tenants.
“That’s when we reached out to city for help, who recommended we engage New Atlantic Development Corporation [a development consultant on the project] to assist us,” James said. The new landlord granted the tenants an option to buy but was stunned when he learned that the group of 12 artists had managed to raise the $1.06 million asking price with the help of the city, New Atlantic and Boston Community Capital, a community development financial intermediary.
“Our artist clients had incomes ranging from 30 percent to 100 percent of median income, and with the city’s help, we were able to make terrific live-work spaces that met their individual needs, and at prices each could afford,” said developer Peter Roth, President of New Atlantic. The project also included a commercial condominium for builder Paul Donelan (also a long-term tenant in the former Rubber Factory) and newly renovated spaces for 12 new artist households with incomes up to 80 percent of area median income.
New Atlantic and the residents worked closely with ICON architecture to design the units around specific artistic needs, making way for pottery kilns, a circus trapeze and even taxidermy.
‘Shared Nests’
New Atlantic and ICON teamed up again in 2005 to create a very different live-work project, ArtBlock 731 on Harrison Avenue in Boston’s South End neighborhood. Fifty-four loft units flank the renovated Bates Studios (work-only studios in an abandoned public school) in two 5-story buildings, and wrap a sculpture garden and cooperative gallery at street level. To qualify to purchase one of the 26 affordable live-work loft spaces in ArtBlock, applicants must be certified as a working artist by a BRA panel of reviewers.
Like Artblock, the Dartmouth Hotel is a mix of new construction and adaptive use. The award-winning preservation project contributes to the revitalization of Dudley Square by restoring the former landmark and appealing to a variety of user groups. Ground-floor commercial space, including restaurants, banks and boutiques, energizes the project at the street level, while the new construction houses eight live-work rental lofts for registered artists.
There is no formal review for artists wanting to take up residence at The Plant and Calender Mills in Providence, R.I., but the culture of the new development encourages artistic collaboration in public courtyard spaces as much as in the shared “nests” – live-work lofts that accommodate up to five tenants. Dissolving both the live-work boundary and the zoning that once precluded units shared by more than three unrelated tenants, the long-term lease units are attracting artist-sympathetic uses and collegial collaboration on all fronts. Additionally, the project is creating live-sell multilevel units that have a separate showroom or selling floor along busy Valley Street. Streuver Brothers, Eccles and Rouse and the nonprofit Puente are developing the mixed-use adaptive reuse of the former industrial mills.
According to Boston zoning codes, artists in live-work units are the only occupational group permitted to live in industrially zoned areas of the city. To that end, the BRA recently developed design guidelines for developers to articulate minimum requirements to meet artists’ needs, such as a minimum square footage requirement of 1,000 square feet. Beyond the design guidelines, however, the means by which the distinction between living and working spaces is dissolved varies. In the industrially zoned Reedville area of Hyde Park, The Westinghouse Lofts is ICON’s most recent endeavor to design flexible living and working spaces for artists in a former industrial mill. The project accommodates a range of needs by offering 62 lofts and 9,000 square feet of work-only space situated across from rental units, offering a “live-work Â… nearby” option for artists who prefer to maintain some distance from their media.
Artist live-work spaces currently available to rent or own are listed on ArtSpaceFinder.com, a service sponsored by Boston’s ArtistLink. Led by Director Jason Schupbach, ArtistLink provides technical assistance and advocacy on the development of affordable and permanent spaces for artistic ventures, creating networks among artists, developers, local officials and financial backers.
