The Center for Parks & People at Auchentoroly Terrace

Cultural, Educational, Historic, Non Profit, Award Winning, Historic, Sustainable

Baltimore’s leading non-profit for providing solutions to environmental and park issues, Parks & People Foundation charged the designers with fashioning a campus from a series of abandoned historic buildings on an overgrown site within a premier park. The process engaged public and private entities in a 10-year planning, design, and construction effort and overcame challenges arising from a diversity of private and public funding sources. All aspects of the project required State and Federal historic approvals.

The project includes the restoration of the park’s landscape, the restoration of the park’s original Superintendent’s House, and the design of a new sustainable headquarters for the Foundation.

The project incorporates advanced sustainable design practices throughout the site and buildings, and was awarded LEED Platinum certification. A majority of the campus is dedicated to public use including a teaching lab, reading room, event space, seminar room, demonstration gardens, and new bike and walking paths, encouraging the community to learn, grow and explore their natural environment.

The Superintendent’s House is a model for using historic restoration and sustainable design to breathe new life into existing structures. The historic structure was twice the victim of arson which destroyed the roof and much of the interior of the house. The restored House retains its original exterior detail and trim, evoking the long history of the park, while offering a flexible, open floor plan for use as a meeting space.

The new headquarters provides a respectful counterpoint to the historic structures. The large, open office space is nestled into the landscape to diminish the overall impact of the building on the site, while a green roof and terrace create strong connections between interior and exterior spaces. Conventional materials including wood siding and metal panel complement the use of stone and slate in the historic structures and evoke images of humble agrarian outbuildings.