Friends Seminary

New York, NY

Envoie projects oversaw a complex, multi-phase project spanning from 2006 to 2020 for Friends Seminary, a 220 year-old Quaker school in New York City. The initial project was a 24,000 sf renovation which linked seven historic buildings, ranging from 50 to 150-years-old, all with different structural systems, foundation depths and floor levels. The 2012 project created a new lower and middle school dining facility in the basement of the buildings, and involved incredibly complicated infrastructure and MEP upgrades. The final project integrated three townhouses into the campus, linking them to an adjacent building and topping all four buildings with a 2-story addition. This $70 million project added 20,000 SF of new space and 36,000 SF of renovated space.

    • Liaised with owner’s landlord, who had direct oversight of the work

    • Point of contact for neighbor concerns

    • Planning for multiple phases of work, which needed to not only allow the school to function each fall, but also tie together at project completion

    • Developed and maintained project cost report, including reporting to board.

    • First Collaborative for High Performanc Schools (CHPS) certified school in New York

    • Phased construction in an occupied school, sometimes during school breaks and summers

    • Difficult site conditions requiring multiple access agreements in an historic district

    • Project required knitting together existing building to adjacent historic townhouses

    • Owner - Friends Seminary

    • Architect - Kliment Halsband Architects

    • Landscape Architect - Todd Rader + Amy Crews

    • Builder - AECOM Tishman

    • Photography - Vanni Archive

"The revived 19th-century facade appears as it must have more than 150 years ago but conceals a fresh 29,000-square-foot upper-school wing…Now the campus has room to breathe, due to a meticulous renovation and expansion that treads gently on the old-world charm of its setting."

- Linda Lentz
Architectural Record
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