DiGiorgio Associates Inc. (DAI) assisted Wayside Youth and Family Support Network with site feasibility assessment for their new 60,000 s/f youth residential treatment campus. Once the site was selected, DAI completed a master plan study for the project. The vision for this campus combines aspects of a private school with a residential townhouse atmosphere. The interior layout has many centralized and shared services but the living spaces are set up to be more like home and self-contained.
The 14-acre campus will include 6 townhome structures with 12 teenagers living in each residence; a school/day-programming center, cafeteria, laundry, offices for approximately 40 counseling and administrative staff members; the Ron Burton Memorial Sports Complex, soccer and softball playing fields; and parking for staff and families. The overall building mass resembles a series of residential scale homes that are linked together by the educational facility.
The upper floor of each townhouse contains private rooms along a central corridor. Each resident's room will be carpeted and furnished with a bed, desk, and closet. The corridor ends in a shared central area that contains sitting and bathing facilities for each townhouse. The first floor of each townhouse has been designed as a series of small scale rooms that will create the same home-like atmosphere for the living, dining, kitchen, and television rooms. Small scale rooms will create a familiar, comfortable reaction in residents as opposed to larger rooms that can create feelings of isolation.
DAI's affiliate construction firm, Monitor Builders Inc. (MBI), was chosen by Wayside to manage the building phase of the project.