The new landscape, at School One, dramatically improves and eases the experience of entering the school, expanding its narrow urban campus onto the sidewalk with an allee of trees, terraced seating nooks, and rain gardens to expand the opportunities for students to hang out, wait and outdoor classroom use, while building a streetscape that engages and invites pedestrian’s and residents of this east side neighborhood.

School One, is a progressive private high school, focused on student strengths and interests to help them find their voice, creativity and community. Housed for 50yrs, in a1950’s era, yellow brick building, within a residential neighborhood it’s exterior identity needed an overhaul to reflect its creative community. The impervious exterior on this corner lot was reimagined, to be a sustainable landscape to include functional elements like a new handicap ramp, new stairs, outdoor art display areas, seating and classroom space within a tight footprint while also building the stormwater storage capacity of the site.

A series of seating nooks are tucked along the retaining walls, carefully crafted and scaled for small outdoor gatherings at the upper entrance level and lower street level to create opportunities to hangout and linger. Exterior art display cases face the street, and form an outdoor art critiques space and showcase student work. Materials palette is selective to tie the building exterior, be cost effective and permeable. Tilework on the building exterior stair, the permeable pavers, new concrete block retaining wall, stone wall caps and stairs all work together to create a soothing and artful color palette with the plantings and their seasonal colors.

The entry sequence of ramp, walkway, outdoor classroom spaces within lush and varied plantings of the rain garden create diverse experiences and vantage points in this tight urban space offering a new identity to this creative community while also being “a teaching tool” on climate resilience. All walking surfaces are permeable including the handicap ramp, stone dust areas, while green space is maximized with the rain gardens, large street tree pits to allow areas for stormwater recharge. The experience of tiered spaces nestled in native plantings of the rain gardens and shade trees that cool this landscape and create opportunities for habitat and seasonal variations through bloom and fall color.