Hawthorne Youth & Community Center (HYCC)
Hawthorne Youth and Community Center is a grassroots, non-profit that has been serving the Roxbury community since 1967. After years in various locations (including a coal cellar) in 1984, they secured the current property from the archdiocese of Boston and had a temporary metal building installed (see photos below). Since then all of the programs HYCC provides including quality educational, cultural and recreational programming for Roxbury’s youth and adults as well as a community meeting place and forum for residents to improve the quality of neighborhood life, all commingled in the one room schoolhouse.
With the building bursting at the seams, the longtime coordinator Samantha Sadd, current students, alumni, the community members, and board had been working for years on an expansion plan. After discussions with Sam the design began in earnest in 2014 with Rose Wood Architects, Placetailor Inc, and the HYCC Board and Staff. It was determined from the outset that a focus of the design would be energy reductions and to use HYCC as a model high performance building. By building to passive house standards we would help ensure the future of the building and its programs through reduced operation costs and also serve as model for other buildings in the community. The program for the building includes much needed storage, a commercial kitchen for food and nutrition programs, multiple community meeting rooms, computer and media rooms, indoor and outdoor projection and performance spaces, gallery and staff offices. In order to complete the project we relied a a vast network of collaborators and donating partners. The lifeblood of the center, Sam Sadd, passed on the day the foundations were poured. It was our responsibility to see that the building we made served as a vessel for the center to continue to serve the community for years to come.
