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Cathedral School for Boys
Cathedral School for Boys
San Francisco, CA, United States
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Other Projects by Office of Charles F. Bloszies
Cathedral School for Boys
San Francisco, CA, United States
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2022
SIZE
10,000 sqft - 25,000 sqft
A small sensitively designed addition and interior renovation for San Francisco’s well-known Cathedral School for Boys is a creative case study in how space-constrained urban institutions can grow to meet their evolving needs.
The school is located within Grace Cathedral Close, which encompasses a full city block, and sits directly adjacent to the landmark Grace Cathedral itself. To fulfill a mandate in its academic masterplan, the K-8 school sought more social, co-teaching, and collaborative learning space where students from different grades could come together. This need had been persistently limited by the school’s historic milieu and already crowded campus.
Finding an opportunity to expand the school’s footprint was a challenge. The design team inserted a narrow, 2-story metal and glass addition between the Gothic Revival cathedral and the existing school building on top of a terrace platform added in 2009, eliminating the need for new foundations. The façade is a curtain wall, installed in just over a week (during the pandemic!), helping to achieve a critical client goal by speeding construction and minimizing disturbance during the academic year.
The new addition is realized as a work of its own time, a critical historic preservation precept, but one that sits comfortably in its architectural surroundings. The glass and aluminum curtain wall is light in appearance, with its pale green color carefully chosen as a reference to nearby verdigris building elements. The structure is also lightweight physically to minimize the loads onto the existing terrace. And most importantly, the addition has become the school’s new heart, capturing never-before-seen views of the cathedral and the city beyond.
The school is located within Grace Cathedral Close, which encompasses a full city block, and sits directly adjacent to the landmark Grace Cathedral itself. To fulfill a mandate in its academic masterplan, the K-8 school sought more social, co-teaching, and collaborative learning space where students from different grades could come together. This need had been persistently limited by the school’s historic milieu and already crowded campus.
Finding an opportunity to expand the school’s footprint was a challenge. The design team inserted a narrow, 2-story metal and glass addition between the Gothic Revival cathedral and the existing school building on top of a terrace platform added in 2009, eliminating the need for new foundations. The façade is a curtain wall, installed in just over a week (during the pandemic!), helping to achieve a critical client goal by speeding construction and minimizing disturbance during the academic year.
The new addition is realized as a work of its own time, a critical historic preservation precept, but one that sits comfortably in its architectural surroundings. The glass and aluminum curtain wall is light in appearance, with its pale green color carefully chosen as a reference to nearby verdigris building elements. The structure is also lightweight physically to minimize the loads onto the existing terrace. And most importantly, the addition has become the school’s new heart, capturing never-before-seen views of the cathedral and the city beyond.
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