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Designs Set for $212M Episcopal Academy

NEWTON TWP., PA-The 221-year-old private school hires top-tier architectural firms to collaborate on a seven-building, 123-acre campus.

By Marita Thomas | Updated on August 15, 2006

NEWTON TWP., PA-On Sept. 27, ground will break on 123 acres of former farmland that will be used to relocate and consolidate Episcopal Academy’s current campuses in Devon and Merion into a single, seven-building campus with some renovated outbuildings. In an unusual move, the 221-year-old private day school enlisted a collaborative of four top-tier architectural firms for the project, which has an estimated construction cost of $212 million.

Philadelphia-based Hillier Architecture is the master architect, which is joined by Venturi, Scott-Brown & Associates and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, which are also based in Philadelphia, and the Cambridge, MA-based Gund Partnership. Philip Dordai, Hillier managing principal, tells GlobeSt.com, “Episcopal wanted signature buildings. A large campus built over time has buildings by many different hands. This is an opportunity to design from a clean sheet of paper and draw from a diverse spectrum of architectural and design philosophies, but also provide some commonality of materials and systems. There will be different looking buildings that work together from an esthetic and operational perspective.”

Hillier has responsibility for all documentation. The entire project has an aggregate of 396,295 sf, which includes renovation of four existing small buildings aggregating 23,305 sf. “It’s been a very collaborative process,” Dordai says, and tells GlobeSt.com that Hillier neither wanted nor had design veto power.

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