Manhattan Country School Farm

Manhattan Country School is unique among New York City independent schools with its working farm in the Catskill Mountains where students live and learn together in a sustainable agricultural setting. The recent acquisition of thirty acres adjacent to their current 200-acre farm will allow the school to expand its extraordinary educational program for its growing student body. AO is working with MSC to extend the practices and spirit of their old beloved farm to the new site with the creation of an active agrarian campus.

A new hybrid living/learning building along with a greenhouse and gardens are carefully integrated into the sloped topography, in coordination with a farmhouse and barn which will remain in place, to make a composition of connected indoor and outdoor spaces all with distinct relationships to the sun and land. The new building joins the farmhouse and extends towards the barn up the hill. Its expansive shed roof covers an open breezeway that links the orchards to the northwest and the pond to the southeast while generous stone steps built into the hill provide open air seating for a flexible classroom and meeting place. The textile room, where students spin and weave wool and plant fibers from the farm, sits at the top of the steps overlooking the surrounding fields. The new building, with sleeping and bathing accommodations for thirty students and teachers, centers on a communal kitchen and dining area where students learn with their hands and senses while preparing and enjoying foods from their harvest.