Tags: BOK, Scout, Mpact PK Slam, Philadelphia
A former technical high school in South Philadelphia is now a space for makers, businesses, nonprofits and artists – and the venue for the 2024 Mpact PK Slam, presented by the Mpact Innovators.
A former technical high school in South Philadelphia is now a space for makers, businesses, nonprofits and artists, as well as a gathering space for the surrounding community and beyond. Bok, an award-winning example of adaptive reuse, presents multiple opportunities for everyone attending the 2024 Mpact Transit + Community Conference in Philadelphia.
Bok’s auditorium is the venue for the always-lively Mpact PK Slam, a signature Tuesday-night event presented by the Mpact Innovators. Conference-goers can arrive early to tour the building (space is limited) and get a closer look at the transformation of the school’s classrooms and learning spaces to serve the more than 200 commercial tenants housed at Bok today. Just spending time at Bok will mean taking home first-hand experience of ways to approach a large-scale redevelopment in a residential neighborhood.
The Bok building, with a view of city center Philadelphia in the distance.
Credit: Astrobus Media (formerly Arsenal Mediawork)
Built in the 1930s, with funds from FDR’s Public Works Administration, Edward Bok Vocational School trained students from across Philadelphia to work in trades such as wallpapering, cosmetology, auto mechanics and brick laying. The school included many purpose-built rooms: a steel room for metalworking, an auto mechanic shop, and a kitchen. Today Bok’s spaces offer an affordable workspace for people who want to start or expand a business or explore how an idea or initiative can grow.
Tours of the building will be led by staff from Scout, the development and design firm that bought the building from the School District of Philadelphia in 2014 and reopened it in 2015 as BOK. (Bok offers tours every Wednesday at 5:00 pm, other than on nationally recognized holidays.)
The 340,000 square foot building, Scout’s team says, offered a lot of practical infrastructure that could be reused, from sinks to power to concrete floors. Scout’s approach was to see how all the building’s features, including its nooks and crannies, could accommodate different sizes of businesses or activities. Today, look inside BOK for a tattoo parlor, guitar repair, childcare facility, a bottle recycling company, furniture designers, architects, and more.
In redeveloping the building, Scout also sought to find ways to make the building more open and transparent to the neighborhood, as well as ways to stay in touch with alumni of the former school. The loading bays of the former auto shop are used as entryways to the “Workshop” – to coffee, bike repair, craft fairs and events all year. Local organizations are invited to use Bok’s spaces.
The building’s heritage is on full display in the auditorium, on the first floor. Everyone attending the PK Slam will sit on seats fabricated by woodworking students. Steel medallions of the four original school trades – Sciences, Ceramics, Weaving and Metalworking – hang above the entryways. Take a seat. Absorb the aura of work and enterprise in Philadelphia. Hear what today’s transit, mobility and development practitioners and advocates have to say!
Facts about BOK
58% of BOK businesses are women-owned
1 in 4 are minority owned
2/3 of tenants live in South Philadelphia
Tenant spaces range from 52 to 21,000+ square feet
600 people work there; 175,000 visit each year
Find out more: www.buildingbok.com
Watch: Eight Years in the Making (Bokumentary Update)