Harlem RBI Dream Charter School

New York, NY

The Harlem RBI Dream School courtyard and roof garden has been a wonderful opportunity to create a functional and beautiful learning landscape on two levels for this inspiring charter school in East Harlem. Working in hand sketch and study model in a quick back and forth with the client, Harlem RBI Dream School and Jonathan Rose Companies, and the architects, Perkins Eastman and Civic Builders, SCAPE has created a design that meets the needs of the school for learning and gathering spaces, and provides a viewing garden for affordable housing units that overlook the landscape. The design also negotiates the physical relationship between the school and the community with tree plantings along a fence line and pathways that both set off the school as a place of learning and integrate it with the surrounding neighborhood.