MarketPlace at Cardinal Cushing Centers

Introduction

The Cardinal Cushing Centers are a collection of education and support facilities for developmentally and intellectually challenged adults and children located on a large campus in Hanover, Massachusetts. First opened in 1949 on 175 acres, the Centers continue to grow today, offering day and residential programs and state-of-the-art training for hundreds of individuals. 

Seeking to expand services within the local community, the leadership of Cardinal Cushing Centers envisioned a transformative new facility. The resulting MarketPlace Building is a 20,000 sqare-foot home to the Cushing Café, a commercial kitchen, thrift store, gift shop, workroom, offices, and modern training classrooms. Working with the architect, ARC/ Architectural Resources Cambridge, Cushing Centers developed a creative plan for a new, more visible location to house three shops that provide opportunities for vocational training for students aged 10 to 22 and work opportunities for adults in the program.

The  Story

The building integrates retail shops on a major public-facing artery in Hanover with classrooms on the quiet campus-facing side with the intent of welcoming the community and building a relationship between the residents of the campus and the town.

To draw attention to the café’s open space, the design team specified Crossville’s Shades 2.0 collection in the color Thunder for the flooring. With its rectified format, Shades 2.0 porcelain field tiles create a fashion-forward and highly functional surface that is foundational to the design and feel of the space. The overall look of the Shades 2.0 collection features a subtle, linear graphic that gives nod to the biophilic design trend. With a durable porcelain body, the tiles are as functional as they are beautiful, offering ease of maintenance and cleaning, even with high traffic, spills, and splatters. Responsibly made in the U.S., Shades 2.0 also supported ARC’s sustainability goals for the project and was readily available even during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Art is one of the key components of Cardinal Cushing Centers’ mission. Students are consistently offered opportunities to express themselves through the creation of original art, and these works are displayed throughout Cardinal Cushing Centers. For the MarketPlace, the design team integrated art display on the walls in the café as a way to invite visitors into the campus experience. 

After discussions with Crossville’s technical experts and some creative, out-of-the-box thinking, the team chose to install Crossville’s Color by Numbers in White on one highly visible wall with student artwork painted on the tiles. The students painted their creations on tiles that were then glazed at a local pottery studio, The Pottery Place. Crossville donated the tiles that served as canvases for the students, and the local Crossville representative coordinated with the project architect and The Pottery Place to ensure an interactive experience for participants and a successful installation upon completion. The result is stunning yet durable, completely custom art wall that engages the visitor and commemorates the accomplishments of the participating students.