ST. ALBANS SCHOOL

The site program for the new addition of Marriot Hall at St. Albans School in Washington, DC included creating new open space, establishing a campus-wide accessible path system on a site with over 60 feet of grade change and integrating the new design into the historic campus and Cathedral Close.

Primary historic research of the Olmsted firm’s work on the National Cathedral grounds and at St. Albans School informed the basic design strategies and the re-conception of the campus planting approach for the site design of a new addition to the main academic building. Through an aggressive program of removals, the campus landscape was replanted with the goal of knitting the school grounds back into the original woodland planned by Frederick Law Olmsted. The challenge in realizing the replanting of the woodland palette was that planting opportunities were mainly over structure in several large, extensive green roofs and intensive planters. These challenges were made into opportunities in bringing the wooded landscape into the campus center, planting over a submerged loading area, and in creating an extensive green roof on the upper level of the new addition for formal gatherings.

Project by Richard Burck Associates, Inc. with Skidmore Ownings and Merrill. 

Lisa Giersbach, Project Manager

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