Our work at the Katherine Delmar Burke School, an independent school for girls in San Francisco, has included campus-wide improvements to reinvigorate this unique linear campus. The Arts and Sciences Building is one part of a larger effort to build a new central library, renovate the Gymnasium to serve as a performance/assembly space, and unify the campus around a coherent sequence of outdoor spaces.

The new classroom building reclaims an underutilized portion of the campus to create a new learning center for the school’s older students. Adjacent to a sensitive neighborhood context, the building is scaled to complement the adjacent private homes while framing a generous outdoor play space for the school. Outdoor porches and stairs serve as the building’s circulation system, and focus activity inward toward the new courtyard. The two-story, 9,500 sq. ft. building includes science classrooms, flexible teaching spaces for music and drama, an art studio and a multi-purpose meeting room.