Dorothy’s Cottage at The Kemmons Wilson Center for Good Grief

1520 W. Poplar Avenue, Collierville TN 38107, 1520 W. Poplar Avenue, Collierville TN 38107 United States

Building Area (sf): 4,600 sf

Completion: April 2023

Architect of Record:

LRK

Tom Gorney, Sophorn Olsen, Greg Morrison, Frank Ricks, Lauren Ricks, Caleb Sears

• Owner/Client:
• General Contractor: Flintco
• Electrical: Civil Engineer – A2H
  Structural Engineer – Davis Patrikios Criswell
  Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Engineer – HNA Engineering
  Lighting – Clear Advantage
• Engineering:
  
• Other:
  
• Photography:
  Nick McGinn
  

The Kemmons Wilson Family Center for Good Grief initiated a 4,600-square-foot $2.1 million expansion to their Collierville campus to help address the growing demand for counseling services, and provide a new space for summer camps and community activities. The project team answered the multi-use programmatic criteria with a simple building form and a clear parti that brings daylight into every space.

The Kemmons Wilson Family Center for Good Grief initiated a $2.1 million expansion to their Collierville campus to help meet the growing demand for counseling services in the region, and to provide a new space for summer camps and community activities. The new center, Dorothy’s Cottage, occupies a small, wooded site adjacent to a hospital and hospice house.

The new 4,600-square-foot Cottage includes a multipurpose gathering space, catering kitchen, individual counseling rooms, and an outdoor gathering area designed to accommodate counseling services in a group or camp format. The building parti is informed by multiple uses of the project, divided between a semi-private wing and public wing that can be opened up be used together when needed, meeting at the atrium and connected outside through a courtyard.

At the beginning stages of the project, the client mentioned using every square inch of their current center - such as utilizing small corridors for lots of uses, from yoga classes to file storage. While the new Cottage has a small footprint the team designed a building where each space holds as many uses as possible, where the atrium becomes a tall open space for morning yoga classes that spill out into the courtyard, and where the hallways were designed just a few feet wider than normal to become galleries and spaces to gather. The architecture and interiors use simple forms and a quiet material palette to reflect the Center’s core mission of providing a safe and comforting environment. Daylight and views to the arboreal setting through large windows bring a sense of openness and hope for those dealing with grief. At the heart of the building the atrium serves as a locus for connection and healing.