St. Agnes School & Church

The St. Agnes Parish is an urban campus in the heart of Arlington, Virginia. The 7-acre Parish has 6 buildings and consists of the Church, Elementary School, Rectory, Parish House and Maintenance Building.

Like many urban Parishes, the campus was challenged with too few parking spaces and almost no usable open space. Over the years, new programs had been added and the organization of uses on the campus was misaligned. Most needed were meeting rooms for the different Parish groups to meet.

Our task was to evaluate the existing conditions of the buildings and the site and to make recommendations based on the needs that were shared with us during our interview sessions with the Parish and the Diocese of Arlington.

The final master plan called for numerous projects to be implemented over a 10-year period. Including an addition to the church, a new gymnasium, renovations to the school, and the relocation of the Adoration Chapel. Additional recommendations included improvements to the parking lot.

The church was originally built in 1969 and provided 880 seats. The church’s entrances were somewhat hidden and the circulation in and out of the building was difficult. Our solution located a new addition at the front of the church to create a central entrance, easy to find and allowing the priest to greet the parishioners entering and leaving the church.  The addition included an adoration prayer chapel, a cry room, a new elevator, and new bathrooms. We also renovated the main chapel including new pews and new lighting.

The second largest project was the renovation to the elementary school by converting the former convent building into a new library and to renovate the former library to expand classrooms and other