GFS’ All School Commons Earns Gold AIA Philadelphia Design Award

Photography by Halkin Mason Photography.

Commended for its elegance, restraint, and stewardship, Germantown Friends School’s All School Commons was named the Gold Medal winner of the American Institute of Architects Philadelphia 2025 Design Awards competition last month. It also received two commendations: the Reimagined Masonry Award and Committee on the Environment Award.

In bestowing its highest honor on the new 40,000-square-foot facility, the jury noted: “This design reimagines a new Commons that links and reuses two historic buildings with elegance, restraint, and stewardship. Situated at the heart of a dense campus, the multi-use project stood out as an exceptional project to the jury.” 

The All School Commons was selected for the gold medal by a jury of esteemed architects from across the country out of approximately 125 submissions.

Designed by DIGSAU and Leslie Gill Architect, the facility was born out of a vigorous strategic visioning process that informed GFS’ sustainable campus plan, of which the All School Commons is part. The plan centers on core tenets to honor the school’s history, strengthen connections both within the campus and with the surrounding community of Germantown, enhance the student experience, and promote environmental responsibility. 

“DIGSAU and Leslie Gill fully embodied GFS’ mission and values in their thoughtful and ingenious design,” said Head of School Dana Weeks. “They brilliantly married our commitment to stewardship and community with our desire to advance exceptional teaching and learning.” 

Completed in Fall 2024, the light-filled, ADA-accessible, and sustainably-designed three-level complex reimagines the student experience by centering creativity and enhancing collaboration across the arts, engineering, film, and theatre, while fostering community and wellbeing in a new state-of-the-art kitchen and servery. The building connects the new Dining Hall, an adaptive reuse of the old Smith Gym, to the existing Barbara & David Loeb Performing Arts Center. On Greene Street, it features a new additional gateway to and from campus.

The light in the rooms is all-encompassing, and for art-making, light is so important. Going into the new space for the first time, I felt transformed. This is going to change the way we all collaborate. 

–Caroline Santa, Upper School Art Teacher

The new space has been made possible through the generous support and commitment of the GFS community, including the following named gifts:

• Abigail R. Cohen Center for the Arts
• Susanna S. Kite GFS History Gallery
• William B. Dietrich Conference Room
• Feldman Family Conference Room
• Class of 1982 Pedestrian Way
• Johnson Family Digital Media Lab
• Polly Miller Campbell ’44 Study Lounge
• Alice L. Davenport and Frannie Smith Study Lounge
• Office of the Art Department
• The Parker S. Quillen ’56 and Lou Ann Quillen Study Lounge
• Class of 1970 Green Roof

In honor of their 50th reunion, GFS’ Class of 1975 organized a gift for the All School Commons. Oscar Mertz, a member of the class and an architect and planner, remarked on the profound effects of the building. 

“The building is a physical manifestation of an open door,”* he noted. “And, from a design perspective, how this project transformed the Smith Gym and added on so seamlessly—plus the complement to the Loeb—is amazing,” said Mertz.

GFS’s All School Commons is among the most ambitious projects in the school’s 180-year history, and the impact of its flexible spaces is already reverberating across campus. The robotics club built a field to prepare for competition in the Johnson Digital Media Lab on the lower level; sound sculptures created from junk and recycled materials take shape in the Fabrication lab; artworks created by students of all ages adorn the walls on rotating display; and students experiment with film in the 20-bay darkroom, as well as digital media in several purpose-built labs.  

Quickly after opening for dining in November 2024, and classes in January 2025, the All School Commons became a busy hub both during school and after, for performances, events, and celebrations. Students, teachers, families, and alumni are making it their own and, as always, leaving the door open for all those to come.

Read the Jury Remarks:
All School Commons — Gold Medal
This design reimagines a new Commons that links and reuses two historic buildings with elegance, restraint, and stewardship. Situated at the heart of a dense campus, the multi-use project stood out as an exceptional project to the jury. Elegant, proportioned spaces reveal thoughtful detailing—arched canopies, carved sandstone benches, split-face masonry, and nuanced brick transitions—creating context-aware façades that transform as you wrap the building. The courtyard, aligned with new entrances, becomes a bright outdoor ‘room’ that brings light and nature into the center of the Commons, a deliberate move that elevates experience.
 
Strong integration with multiple access points, daylight, wellbeing, and flexible, light-filled spaces supports interdisciplinary learning, honors Quaker values, and advances design discourse on sense of place, ecology, equity, and history. Its material sensibility and adaptive reuse demonstrate responsible stewardship, while the project’s civic front and permeable circulation strengthen campus connectivity and inclusive, community-centered learning. It is a wonderful project that is sure to elevate the architecture of the campus in the decades to come.

*GFS’ school motto is Behold, I set before thee an open door.