Architect’s vision of what 3 North St. will look like when it becomes the Foley Family Community Pavilion. (TLCD Architecture)
Some 90 people filled the upstairs hall at Little Saint, the vegan culinary compound at 25 North St., to attend the “season finale” of the three-part Design Dialogues 2022 on Monday, Nov. 14. Healdsburg’s urban planning entrepreneur Jim Heid produced the series, the second year of this gathering of urban professionals, architects, designers, planners and those with related interests, presented by CraftWork and the Mill District.
With design entrepreneur Rob Forbes hosting, and Healdsburg Museum’s Noah Jeppson and Weeklys CEO Dan Pulcrano (of the Tribune) sharing the stage, Healdsburg’s Community Services Director Mark Themig took the event’s theme to heart: “Updating Our Past for the Future.” His task was made simple by the fact that there was no better example of the topic than the stage he was sitting on, and the building next door.
The SHED, launched in 2013, was consciously designed to emulate the functional agrarian architecture of the old warehouse just to the west, along the train tracks with the Purity Products sign. Themig called it an “iconic agrarian building,” and pointed out it also served as the inspiration for the newest city hall, built in 1996-97, with its corrugated metal siding just a block away.
That entire corridor of North Street, between Healdsburg and Vine, has become testament to the town’s own agrarian roots, which has developed into the west downtown Healdsburg style, the agrarian vernacular.