Garden House Renovation

The demands of the pandemic offered Packer an opportunity to pause and reflect on how we use our spaces and interact as a community. We now see the renovation of the Garden House and Garden as part of a long-term Campus Master Planning process. Packer has long been committed to reconfiguring our historic campus to meet the needs of current and future students. We aim to create a home base for every age of students we serve while enhancing sustainability and accessibility across campus. There is no plan to increase enrollment. 

The shift of the Lower School to the Garden House will create much-needed additional space in Founder’s Hall for an improved Upper School experience in the years to come. In the near term, renovations and enhancements to the first floor of Founder’s Hall opening in September 2023 will create an Upper School community life hub that will include areas dedicated to independent or group study, relaxation, and connection.

Support from our generous donors, along with ongoing work by Packer’s Board and administration to ensure the health of our internal capital reserves, makes the Garden House and Garden renovation projects possible. Contact giving@packer.edu if you would like to learn more about supporting Packer’s campus renovations.

The Garden House will house the Lower School. It will consist of purpose-built classrooms with flexible in-classroom spaces for first through fourth grades, along with hallway breakout spaces and offices for Lower School administrative personnel. An all-weather connector will adjoin the Garden House to the main building, facilitating movement through campus for classes like arts, library, and physical education, and fostering the intentional cross-divisional interactions that help relationships and belonging flourish at Packer.

The Garden House will more than double in size, from about 7,500 square feet to 25,000 square feet.

Yes. The redesign of the Garden itself—the next step in its evolution over many years of Packer’s history—began in March 2024. Partial Garden access will be restored for the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year.

The new Garden will include spaces and structures to support various modes of play, from running and ball playing to imaginative games and quiet engagement. New play structures and seating, improved accessibility, and thoughtful landscaping will create a more open plan, better flow throughout areas of the Garden, and more welcoming entries to both the Garden House and the patio. The new Garden design will also emphasize sustainability, including through its water management system.

Our landscape architects are taking a thoughtful and thorough approach to incorporating nature with play to benefit students of all ages. 

The Garden's new landscaping will include the removal of some trees to make room for the new building footprint. However, three of the larger trees will remain untouched and be incorporated into the new landscape design, which also includes replanting native and naturalized trees in higher numbers than will be lost. 

Yes. Because the new Garden House will extend into the footprint of the Imagination Station and Mushroom Village, these play structures will be dismantled. A community event celebrating the Imagination Station took place in June 2023.

Our plans for the Garden House include an investment in materials, equipment and systems with future building standards and decreased energy and water usage in mind. The new Garden design will also emphasize sustainability, including through its water management system.

Materials

The Garden House renovation features both renewable and reusable approaches to material selection. For example, the structure of the building will be Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), harvesting naturally renewable timber in lieu of carbon-intensive steel or concrete. Similarly, the building’s new facade is composed of reclaimed brick.

A consideration of carbon intensity has been part of the material finish selections throughout the building. Natural, locally-sourced materials will be used whenever possible.

Systems

The new Garden House will have all electric mechanical systems, ensuring the building will be 'future-proofed.' The design anticipates a renewably sourced electrical grid and a shift away from reliance on fossil fuels. It will feature LED and low-load fixtures, occupancy monitors, and a building management system for tracking and managing heating and cooling requirements.
 

The renovated Garden House will be a fully accessible building with an elevator and single occupancy restrooms. The redesign of the Garden will facilitate movement throughout areas of the Garden and will include more welcoming ramped entrances to the Garden from Livingston Street, and from the Garden to Founder’s Hall.

The renovation of the Garden itself began in March 2024 and the Garden will remain fully closed through August 2024. When school reopens for the 2024-2025 school year, we will once again have access to a portion of the Garden, this time full renovated. 

Because of the sometimes unpredictable nature of construction and the logistics of securing alternate event spaces, we will continue to update the community on our plans for specific annual events as the project proceeds.