Renewing Community in College Park

Abstract

The Calvert School served the city of College Park for more than 50 years. Now vacant, the building still sits at the heart of the historic College Park community. Adaptively reusing this well-loved building as a community center will bring new life to the building and site and provide a much-needed center for community activities in College Park. Reusing an existing building will also help to conserve economic and environmental resources, as well as preserving a visual artifact of the history and sense of community that bind the neighborhood. This thesis explores and proposes a variety of approaches to adaptive reuse and building for community, attempting to find a design strategy that suits the building, the site, the community and the proposed program, while balancing aesthetics and functionality with cultural, historical and environmental responsibility.