Cafe Topia and Topia Arts Center, Adams MA

Cafe Topia and Topia Arts Center, Adams, MA

The Topia Cafe, created by Nana Simopoulous and Caryn Heilman, is the precursor to The Topia Arts Center in the historic Adams Movie Theater.  The Cafe space was part of the former theater lobby space.

Nana and Caryn, who had also developed, built, and run the Topia Inn, were the founders of the Topia Arts Center nonprofit. The Topia Cafe had opened and The Arts Center hired Dana Bixby Architecture to do schematic design and cost estimating for the adaptive re-use of the old movie house.  Following that, we were hired to do a facade re-design of the Cafe, which is shown here. The exterior of the facade was done in a lime plaster for durability and sustainability.  The “bottle little design” is made of wine bottles and the feeling echoes the “starry light” in the barrel vault ceiling of the cafe. Peter Thorne, cabinet maker from West Stockbridge, made the very fine curved wall at the entry to the cafe.  Developed with Peter’s assistance, this wall is built of locally sourced locust.

Nana and Caryn developed their expertise in non toxic, sustainable design when they developed the Topia Inn.  The performing arts center project was designed to LEED standards.

3D modeling was done for the theater space. See the modeling used in the infomercial created by the Topia Arts Center