Master Plan at Anderson Center for Autism - Staatsburg, NY

Dr. Victor V. Anderson founded the Anderson School in 1924. By 1999 the center had shifted its focus from children with emotional disabilities to people, aged five to 21, with extremely challenging autism spectrum disorders. At this time, its large, aging, and impersonal dormitories were run-down, dreary, and ill-suited to its designated population.
In realizing these deficiencies coupled with parents’ deep concerns, a Master Plan to revitalize the campus was manifested in 2004. Commissioned by the executive board, Sloan Architects worked closely with the administration team to develop the Master Plan and its implementation. Due to the scale of the Plan, it was broken down to 3 phases over the course of 8 years. Each phase was strategically thought out and coordinated in order to make smooth transitions with minor disruption and all the while keeping construction on track.
In late 2013, the final phase was completed. The newly de-institutionalized campus has emerged as a village. Modeled on a New England town center concept, it is designed to foster a sense of community and promote social interaction. Buildings and grounds were carefully woven into the landscape, and designed to further support and reinforce the transformation of this institutional campus in a Village where learning and living are fully integrated.

Fourteen new buildings were created, three existing structures were rejuvenated and expanded, and another was adaptively reused within the 24 acre core of the 150 acre campus. This scheme mined the potential of outdoor or in-between spaces— not merely upgrading the facility to state-of-the-art standards, but also altering the character of the place as it relates to its own history, to the region’s broader architectural and material context, and to the bucolic landscape’s inherent features. But most importantly, the master plan and its individual buildings reimagined the ways students with autism could live and grow on this campus.