The Shelter is modeled after a current Women's Shelter in Fredericksburg, Virginia. When doing research, I found that the best case scenario would be to create a shelter that held everything under one roof. The operating and office areas, reception, living space, and bedrooms. The house is ADA accessible and is meant to accommodate a large volume of people at once. Along with being just a shelter, the mission of the organization is to offer services to help the women and their families get back on their feet again and to live a high quality life. This is acheived through their counseling services, full reign of the entire house, exercise room, classes offered weekly, and a resource room to help them find jobs or go to school.
The space is built in an exsisting mansion in a surburban neighborhood. The shell and stairway of the building has been kept intact and everything else on the inside has been remodeled. The orginial floors of the home were kept but sanded down and refinished. Although the space is classified as a commercial institution, it is meant to be a home-like and comfortable living space.
The Senior Show set up
The Hope Lives Women's Shelter is a project dedicated to my late sister - Sarah Harkins, and her unborn child - Cecelia. I wanted to create something that had meaning for me and I knew that Sarah had given back her time to volunteer and help out at a Women's Shelter in Fredericksburg, Virginia where she resided. Sarah was a loving wife, sister, daughter, and mother of four (with the fifth on the way) children. She lived a life of devotion to the Catholic faith and rarely did anything for herself. She often asked me for home decor advice and help and said that someday she wanted me to design her a house and she wanted it to be whimsical and fun. Since I will never get to design her and her family a house, I designed this house for her so that women in need can find hope in the hard times and hopefully gain inspiration from a wonderful, young mom. Some aspects of the design that were chosen in memorial of Sarah was the whimsical color scheme and fun, quirky furniture and lighting selections, light colored hardwood floors, the chapel, and a place that is inviting to kids and people of all shapes and sizes. The name of the shelter and the logo is reminscent of Sarah's last bead that she made - the anchor which symbolizes hope in Christ and the belief that something better is coming. (Read the captions on the boards for more information)
-Christina
