Extending the Threshold.

Situation: Welfare delivery is changing in Hennepin County. The Human Services and Public Health Department is shifting from one centralized service center in downtown Minneapolis to six regional hubs that partner with local service organizations and establish closer ties to their neighborhoods. This emerging regionally focused program offers potential for better outcomes but challenges

the traditional human services center building typology.

Proposition: Architecture can organize and humanize the complexity of institutional spaces. This project proposes a strategic renovation of the Sabathani Community Center in South Minneapolis to achieve these goals by targeting threshold space for intervention. The institution’s new relationship to its residential neighborhood is translated to a new neighborhood-centric welfare

services center. The complex building program is realigned by shifting circulation to emanate from one central courtyard. The existing binary of inside/outside, parking lot/hallway is extended in to a series of thresholds — sidewalk/plaza, plaza/porch, porch/courtyard — to broaden the approachability of the complex and to foster less formal or stigmatized use of the building.