VSBA

VSBA has three nominations in this year’s DesignPhiladelphia Awards!

Voting is open through Friday, September 5th – please vote for VSBA today!:
https://app.rankedvote.co/rv/dpawards2025/vote

VSBA is nominated in three categories:

Local Community / Social Impact: VSBA’s South Philadelphia Community Health and Literacy Center has had such a tremendous and positive impact in shaping the health, education, and social unity of its Point Breeze / Newbold neighborhood.

Accessible Design: For St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, VSBA designed a new entry pavilion and renovated its historic sanctuary to make the church universally accessible to all congregants.

Lifetime Achievement: VSBA’s president Dan McCoubrey is nominated for his lifetime of brilliant design and leadership with VSBA and Venturi, Scott Brown!

The DesignPhiladelphia Awards celebrate those shaping the future of Philadelphia’s design industry. Winners will be celebrated on Friday, October 3rd at DesignPhiladelphia’s Kickoff Party.

Thank you so much for your support!

VSBA has just completed renovations at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts to create a home for the new Sachs Program for Arts Innovation.

Formerly an underused space without much comfort or amenity, the new Arts Lounge is now a wonderful place to view art, attend a concert, study, practice a play, or just hang out.

Our main challenges were: how can we overcome the building’s physical limitations to promote its activities and identity — and accomplish this through very strategic changes on a tight budget?

Find out how we did it!

VSBA Architects & Planners are delighted to announce we’ve completed two new music teaching spaces at the Community College of Philadelphia. Working within the context of the College’s historic main building, we completely transformed both live practice and control rooms.

Click here to see more photos and learn how we did it!

Thank you so much to Topos Magazine of Munich for featuring Denise, Dan, and Seth — “Talents and Masterminds”! — in their latest issue:

https://www.toposmagazine.com/talents-masterminds-topos113/

As a staff, VSBA Architects & Planners has been discussing together the impact of the coronavirus on how we work. We’re been talking about the right things to do, for our staff as well as our clients and collaborators.

Whether we work from home or the office, we remain focused on getting our work done — as diligently and creatively as ever. None of us know how long this will last, or the breadth of its impacts, but we’re going to see it through in a positive way. Please feel free to contact us like you normally would by phone or via email.

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home! And all the best to you and your families.

Introducing Your Guide to Downtown Denise Scott Brown!

Published in conjunction with a life-spanning retrospective at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Vienna), Your Guide… is a travel companion to the world of Denise Scott Brown. It’s a riot of photos and stories, a timeline, a reference glossary, and a major never-before-published interview. The book was written and designed by Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum, who also designed the exhibition in conjunction with the museum.

Your Guide… is available via publishers Park Books, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and many other retailers.

Grab copies now!

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/your-guide-to-downtown-denise-scott-brown-jeremy-eric-tenenbaum/1129915199

[Happy] [Holidays] [Love] [VSBA] !

VSBA architect Kathleen Scanlon recently helped to fight flooding in Bradford County, PA. Here’s her story:

“After the extraordinary hurricane season of 2017, I decided I needed to find out what I could do to use my knowledge and skills to help people and communities affected by natural disasters. I found the AIA New York’s training session for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services’s (Cal OES) Safety Assessment Program. It was created to train architects, engineers and other certified building professionals to assist local governments in the aftermath of a disaster. I completed the program in November 2017.

On August 21, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, experienced flash flooding that significantly damaged structures and roadways. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) requested support from the Pennsylvania Structural Engineers Emergency Response. PEMA requested Cal OES SAP-trained volunteers for a two day deployment to assist in assessing damages. I was ready to help and finally do more than watch the news and hope for the best.

Last week I reported to the Bradford County Emergency Operation Center along with a structural engineer from the Pittsburgh area and a civil engineer from the Harrisburg area. We assisted the local volunteers in recording the damages in the township of West Burlington and New Albany, PA.

The damage caused by the flooding of Towanda Creek was surprising. The Community Library in New Albany was swept off its foundation and into the street. Many roads and bridges were damaged, culverts were clogged with debris, and the roadbeds were undermined for significant distances. Volunteers measured and quantified portions of roads that would have to be rebuilt entirely. These townships will be recovering for some time to come.”

We’re delighted to announce that VSBA is now collaborating with the University of Pennsylvania to create a home for the recently created Sachs Arts Innovation Hub!

The SAIH is the result of a $15 million gift from Keith L. and Kathy Sachs — the largest gift for the arts ever made to the University. The program provides grants to teachers, creators, and presenters of the arts on campus.

The SAIH will be an important new component within the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. VSBA is exploring ways to integrate the SAIH while enhancing the Center inside and outside — creating friendly social spaces, new graphics and communication methods, and distinct expressions of identity.