Campus Planning & Design

St. Andrew's Episcopal School, Potomac, Maryland

Mobirise

Campus Student Center

The CAA team has been providing on-call engineering services to St. Andrew’s Episcopal School (SAES) since 2008. Founded in 1978, SAES is a co-educational independent day school, enrolling approximately 585 students in preschool-grade 12.

A new 43,000-square-foot LEED Gold Student Center comprises two gymnasiums, a fitness center, a dance studio, a student commons area, a café, indoor and outdoor meeting and gathering spaces, a display space for student artwork, dedicated locker rooms for coaches and fitness staff, a sports rehab center, and a new home for the nationally-renowned Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning

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Environmental Site Design

Clark Azar's role on various projects at SAES includes new stormwater management; traffic reconfiguration; parking; new sidewalks; athletic fields; and ADA upgrades. Site design services provided by CAA includes the design of eight micro-bioretention areas for stormwater management; relocating an existing drop-off loop to allow for the construction of a pedestrian-friendly plaza; the design of a ring road which allowed parallel parking on one side and alleviated traffic and parking issues; the addition of a sidewalk to provide connectivity from the main campus parking area and Student Center; and the design of retaining walls to tie into existing grades and provide ADA accessibility around the redeveloped area

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Lower School & Parking Deck

A new Lower School and Parking Deck were also added to the SAES site. The lower school accommodates pre-school to grade 5 students, using a responsive classroom approach. It's 30,000 square feet provides labs and classrooms.

A new parking deck offers 78 on-grade and 82 elevated parking spaces in an attractive blended design that complements the other buildings on site. 

“In my 15 years, nothing has required more effort or brought me more joy then the Student Center Project.”
                     Robert Kosasky, Head of School

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Wheaton Woods Elementary School

Rockville, Maryland

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Need for Additional Space

CAA was on a multi-disciplined team for the modernization of Wheaton Woods Elementary School, a one-story 66,763-SF elementary school built in 1951. The former facility had a capacity of 311 students, significantly lower than the space needed for the 412 students enrolled in kindergarten through the 5th grade.

The modernized school comprises 69,521 square feet. To reduce the footprint and conserve open space, the building is two stories with a walk out basement at the lower level to the fields and play areas following the dropping topography. The building is designed for maximum capacity of 740 students in kindergarten through the 5th grade. The school was selected as a pilot site for a daycare center.  

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LEED Silver Design

Site design services including multiple bioretention facilities onsite to manage storm water. Also included were improvements to vehicular ingress and egress, service deliveries, bus turn-around and passenger drop-offs, pedestrian traffic flow, site master planning for future expansions and temporary classroom locations, site grading and drainage, playgrounds and athletic fields, landscaping, site lighting and land use.

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Sustainable site practices included stormwater management quantity and quality control measures. A green roof was utilized on a portion of the building to promote stormwater quality and efficient use of the space. Stormwater quality was provided according to ESD criteria on a site which had no stormwater treatment in the existing condition.

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Bayard Rustin Elementary School

Rockville, Maryland

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Objectives

Bayard Rustin Elementary School replaces the Montgomery County for the Child Resource Center facility on 11 acres on West Edmonston Drive in Rockville. The elementary school accommodates enrollment growth at the elementary school level in the Richard Montgomery Cluster.

Safety, sustainability and accessibility, keeping cars and buses separate, maintaining and enhancing landscape buffers between the school and adjacent property owners, consolidating fields and playgrounds for ease of supervision, orienting classrooms north/south to control daylight, minimizing the building footprint and minimizing roads and parking on site were all objectives met by the design team for the new school.

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Amenities

The site is located near an unnamed tributary leading to Cabin John Creek and a floodplain area. The project involved the demolition of the child care center and design of the new one-story wing and a three-story academic wing. The site includes a full-size soccer field, 100 parking spaces, play areas, sidewalks, a bus loop to accommodate 12 buses and new stormwater management facilities. The core capacity of the school is for 740 students.

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LEED Goals & Permitting

To comply with LEED Silver certification goals and Environmental Site Design requirements, CAA designed seven micro-bioretention areas and two underground infiltration trenches. A green roof is also provided on the school.

In addition to design, CAA was responsible for an MDE Notice of Intent, MDDNR Roadside Tree Permit, and City of Rockville right-of-way, sediment control, stormwater management, fire access plan and public works permits. 

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Diamond Elementary School

Gaithersburg, Maryland

Mobirise

Background

CAA was on a multi-disciplined team for a 17,000-square-foot addition to Diamond Elementary School in the City of Gaithersburg. The improvements included a school building addition, a bus loop, a parent drop-off area and parking reconfigurations. Sidewalks in the right-of-way were extended. 

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Challenges

Adding a new building acilitated the need to improve traffic flow between the parents and the buses, alleviate safety issues for students, and provide much needed additional parking. The CAA team’s design involved the reconfiguration of the existing drop-off areas and parking lots and providing stormwater management. Portable classrooms onsite were relocated from the northeast corner of the school to the southwest end of the school. CAA recently provided as-builts for the stormwater management facilities for the duration of the construction.

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Permitting

CAA obtained the following permits:

•  Gaithersburg Site Development Permit
•  MDDNR Roadside Tree Permit
•  Stormwater Management
•  MCFRS Fire Access Plan
•  MDE Notice of Intent 

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Lycée Rochambeau
The French International School

Bethesda, Maryland

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Background

Clark | Azar & Associates was the civil engineer for a new nursery and primary school for the French International School on eleven acres in Montgomery County. The new campus consolidates preschool and elementary students on a fully secured 11-acre campus with state-of-the-art facilities and easy access to major transit routes and the current upper school campus on Forest Road.

The site contained approximately 170,000 square feet of office space and a parking garage reserved for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). 


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Historic Properties

This project redeveloped the site to accommodate the relocation and consolidation of the existing French International School Bradley and Rollingwood campuses. 

Clark | Azar provided master planning, forestry, and design including a new entrance on State Route 355, four playgrounds, a synthetic turf field, an internal sidewalk network including connection to Rockville Pike, ADA improvements along the site frontage, separate passenger and bus vehicles entrances and exits, overnight bus parking, eight stormwater bioretention facilities, and a design that allowed four County champion trees to remain. (photo credit: Samshots)

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A Team Effort

Clark | Azar worked closely with executive leadership, user groups, stakeholders and state permitting agencies throughout the project. Zoning and permitting included M-NCPPC Special Exception Amendment, M-NCPPC Preliminary Plan Amendment, M-NCPPC Forest Conservation, M-NCPPC Record Plat, MCDPS Sediment Control and SWM, SHA Right-of-Way, and WSSC Site Utility.

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Cold Spring Elementary School

Potomac, Maryland

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Background

Montgomery County Public Schools has been at the forefront of helping Montgomery County retrofit its public facilities with Environmental Site Design (ESD) techniques to achieve the County’s goal to treat 20% of existing impervious areas. At Cold Spring Elementary School, new stormwater management facilities were added on site as part of a gymnasium addition project. This project was one of the most challenging and rewarding for CAA staff.


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Services

The project site was constrained by a 100-year floodplain to the north, limited parking areas that could not be affected, and substandard playing field sizes that could not be reduced. Underground stormwater management facilities were not feasible, so the CAA team designed a bioretention facility within an existing slope while maintaining a portion of the hill for community sledding during the winter. Grass weirs were provided at each tier where the stormwater collects and percolates and is treated for pollutants by bioretention media. The overflow runoff is collected at the bottom tier and ties into an existing drainage system. NPDES, floodplain district, and erosion and sediment control permits were obtained.

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Challenges

This project was met with challenges during design and construction. The site constraints limited the available area for stormwater treatment to an existing 3:1 slope. A series of retaining walls needed to be constructed to create “steps” in the hillside Designing the system to be stable on the hillside required the use of HDPE liners at each biofilter to prevent saturation issues around the wall footings. The CAA team completed the design of the project within the original schedule and delivered site permits and approvals more than one month prior to project bidding and more than three months prior to the start of construction.

The collaborative efforts of the CAA team, MCDEP and MCPS allowed the project to move forward without delay and with a unique solution that met the needs of all stakeholders. 

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work in progress

01.

P3 prince george's county public schools 

Prince George's County, Md.

02.

crown high school

Gaithersburg, Md. (left rendering credit: Stantec)

03.

freedom elementary school & sykesville middle school

Carroll County, Md.

04.

burtonsville elementary school

Burtonsville, Md.

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