Parron Hall

This is the county of San Diego's first family justice center. Our clients are individuals in San Diego County that have experienced some type of victimization. The people that we're going to serve here have gone through a tra I think only the dirt system can accomplish that. John Hall was an amazing partner in this. The goals of this place is to make it as safe and comforting as possible. Everything from the wood to the images on the walls to the space that could be just used for having a moment of crisis. There is enough comfort and space in this building for survivors to experience all of that. It's a large facility at 40,000 square feet, but it didn't quite fit everything that the program called for, so we did this mezzanine and dirt timber solution was perfect for it. And the great thing is I can sketch an idea and send it over to Perron Hall and they'll always say yes, we can do it. When I saw the timber, I thought immediately about nature and how we might be able to bring the outside inside. Wood just naturally feels good. There's research that says that our relationship to it just brings a lower level of stress. Environment matters. I mean it really does. What you're surrounded by, what you see affects your mood. Some of the rooms where you have timber on the ceiling and the walls and everything, I mean it's For some of these victims of abuse, they've never had belonging and so a must have for us is an entire experience of calm, comfort and safety. So all of these solutions that Perron Hall represents so well, they were all just a great fit for the facility. When you go into the thriving area, it's really loud purple colors. Purple is the color of domestic violence recovery and so we wanted to let them know that once they got there, they were in a space of recovery. The graphics on the wall, the images that the victims will see is very thoughtful and intentional. The fact that we could go out and find an image and use it in a way to not only look beautiful but to educate and to nurture someone is amazing. We want them to look at an image of the ocean and think about calm and also think about the power of it and the power of strength that it brings. We want them to bring those lessons from the outside inside. We toured other centers across the country to get ideas from them. One of the things that we always heard was, I wish I made this room bigger or smaller and we immediately would see a connection to dirt where we could solve that issue. We love that dirt is adaptable. We made today think that we need three medical exam rooms for instance but tomorrow we may need five. You're not knocking down walls, you're not moving utilities, you're simply just detaching some components and reattaching. And so that's the beauty of dirt is that we can expand or contract based on what the community needs are. It's a special type of project that we don't get to do too often. As we've gone down this journey together with Pyrrhan Hall, everyone's heart is invested in it. It's not just a project that we want to get through and get done. The thing I love about Pyrrhan Hall is that every time we have a problem they said we've got a solution and to somebody who's trying to visualize something, having solutions all over the place is just refreshing. I can'think of anything more amazing than leaving this kind of footprint in a community that really needs it. People are going to walk in our doors maybe in the most broken moment of their life and what they're going to find here is that everybody including the space and the building and the comfort is going to help give them a pathway forward.