Miquon School Heart of Campus
Centering campus education in a restored sylvan setting.
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Client: Philadelphia Parks and Recreation
Size: 1 acre
Project status: Construction completed 2025.
Project team: Ground Reconsidered (Project Prime), SMP Architects (Project Prime), Grist Civil Engineering.
The Miquon School project includes the design and construction of a new library and classroom building nestled within a school campus that conducts much of its educational curriculum outside. There are several new landscape spaces that support their goals of connection, progressive education, and a focus on the natural environment. The new library opens on the lower side of a hill to an expanded amphitheater, centering around an existing ‘play barn’ and stage. The new classrooms open on the upper side of the hill onto a raised deck, each with its own special play element: a fire pole an an embankment slide.
Construction details prioritize natural materials, include the reuse of existing boulders and stones on site, timber site walls and stairs, and engineered wood fiber play surfacing. A new human-scaled sundial is featured just outside the library entrance and serves as a symbol of the integrated learning valued at the Miquon School. To address stormwater, there are five new rain gardens which manage and slow drainage across the site, as well as provide learning opportunities and protect the treasured ecology of the Miquon Valley.
