Allen-Stevenson School

Sciame was responsible for the complete renovation and expansion of the Allen-Stevenson School (having almost 400 K-9 students) on East 78th Street in Manhattan. Since 1924, piecemeal additions of adjacent townhouses and a carriage house had turned the school for boys into a rabbit’s warren of circuitous passageways and fragmented divisions. The renovation increased the school’s size by 50%, providing considerably larger classrooms and spaces for art, theater, science, music, and sports. For the first time in the school’s history, the Lower, Middle, and Upper Divisions are located on their own floors, each having their own identity and classrooms that wrap around common spaces or “town centers.” The main floor entry replaces the traditional schoolyard with a new lobby- a large interior piazza- that mediates between the interior spaces of the school and the street.