Dallas Nonprofit WiNGS Gets a Pro-Bono Upgrade by Lauckgroup
To empower impoverished Dallas women, the nonprofit WiNGS offers them financial education and entrepreneurial guidance, and that was becoming difficult to do at the current space. Luckily, one of the organization’s board members also happens to head an interior architecture firm: Lauckgroup president and managing principal Anne Kniffen immediately pledged her help when WiNGS—which stands for Women in Need of Generous Support—announced its plans to move. Lauckgroup would contribute programming and design services pro bono and materials sourcing at cost.
Project designer Sara Barnes led the transformation of the new headquarters, an asbestos-ridden disused ambulance call center. “Every cent counted toward something,” Barnes says. Because the available funds limited the addition of windows, badly needed, the new ones were installed only where they would have the most impact, such as at the ends of corridors. Supplemental brightness comes from glowing light panels, carefully calibrated LED and fluorescent fixtures, and the color palette. One of the coaching rooms, for example, is painted lipstick red.
Barnes then placed kiln-dried trees throughout the 18,400 square feet as symbols of natural serenity. Fortunately, Wholetrees, which supplied and installed them, did so at a reduced fee. A woman co-owns the company.
