Marc Cavagnero Associates have accomplished the renovation and enlargement of a faculty campus by clarifying the circulation and concurrently creating new, versatile program area in probably the most sustainable means

San Francisco, California, United States

Marc Cavagnero Associates’ Hamlin School renovation and expansion project transformed the campus into a fully sustainable building that minimizes demolition and maximizes the reuse of existing structures to reduce waste and increase material resources and insulation of all exterior building envelopes above and below save class to reduce energy consumption

The new Hamlin School campus recently received the 2023 Green Good Design Award from the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

For over 127 years, The Hamlin School has been focused on its mission to educate girls to “meet the challenges of their time.”

The school is located on a steep sloping site in a residential area of ​​San Francisco with restrictive height restrictions.

The campus consists of 3 buildings descending 65 feet down a slope while scaling a 40 foot retaining wall, all conditions that created profound site constraints and design challenges.

With separate elevators and stairways in each building, connections between the separate buildings were unclear.

The retaining wall at the center of the campus created a physical barrier between the middle school and the junior high school, fundamentally dividing the site into upper and lower sections.

The three buildings were constructed in three different eras and were not designed to support the school’s contemporary pedagogical ambitions.

And the undersized gymnasium was shared with the performing arts department, affecting both athletics and performing arts programs.

Work focused on the interior of the site to minimize impact on the stunning bay views from the campus and neighboring residences.

The project expanded the lower school’s McKinne Building, retaining its front half while excavating behind it south to the retaining wall, yielding new excavation area as usable area.

The new design stacked a large, double-height gymnasium over a multipurpose arts space deep in the center of the site, conforming to zone boundaries and minimizing visual impact on neighbors.

The roof of the extension forms a new terrace directly in front of the existing science classrooms in the middle building and creates new opportunities for science education and experiments.

This strategy also consolidated the newly enlarged classrooms on the north side of the McKinne Building, where they make best use of the large windows, soft light, and views.

The existing classrooms were small and did not support the school’s project-based pedagogy.

Working closely with the teachers, the classrooms were paired by grade level, with the youngest children on Level 1 moving up the building as they got older.

Each pair of L-shaped classrooms is connected by an operable partition and a shared project space.

This layout creates differentiated learning spaces to support different learning modes: individual, small group, whole class, and whole grade level.

The renovation also created a new, open and accessible entrance at ground level, midway between the first floor and the newly excavated lower level.

Where the building’s previous 1960s entrance was awkward, cramped and hidden from the street, the new entrance welcomes students, parents and visitors and is connected to the indoor lobbies on levels 1 and 0, which lead directly to the multipurpose performance space and The climbing wall.

These lobbies are open and flexible spaces used for classroom activities, after-school programs and as a vestibule for the new performance space.

Sustainable features of the campus include a computerized building management system using occupancy sensors and daylight sensors to automatically reduce energy use from lighting and HVAC systems when not required.

The architects have used high-efficiency LED lighting fixtures and low-flow plumbing fixtures throughout, while low-E coating double glazing reduces solar gain and energy loss in all new windows.

In addition, operable windows provide user-controlled natural ventilation and limit mechanical cooling to large gathering spaces to reduce energy consumption.

Project: The Hamelin School
Architect: Mark Cavagnero Associates
Design Team: Mark Cavagnero, Felicia Dunham, Anna de Anguera, Christopher Agosta and Tammy LePham
Project Manager: Pacific Union Development Company, Inc.
Client: The Hamlin School
Photographers: Mike Kelley