PURPLE HEART HALL OF HONOR
Location: New Windsor, New York
Client: New York State Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation

Nancy Owens Studio worked with Ikon.5 Architects, designers of a major new wing of the new Purple Heart Hall of Honor, on the landscape design for the Purple Heart Hall of Honor. Views of the striking new façade are revealed as visitors proceed up the entry drive, parking lot and entry plaza. The landscape architects integrated the building and paved surfaces into the surrounding wooded park landscape with plants native to the northeastern region of the United States. The vegetation defines distinct spaces and nestles the building, entry plaza and parking area into the historic woodland setting. 

Visitors approach the building on a tree-lined route culminating in an entrance plaza with views of the Hudson River Valley.  NOS’s site design incorporates traditional elements, such as the colonial-era stone walls which characterize both the site and broader region.  Existing stone walls remain in their original form and are reinterpreted in contemporary details, such as the ribbons of bluestone paving that mark the procession to the building along the entry plaza. Between the industrial steel plates of Ikon.5’s façade, native stones appear again as granite block pavers, creating a material transition between the building’s interior and exterior.

Utilizing the incline of the natural terrain, the entrance plaza slopes gently upward toward the building, contracting and expanding, to reveal the prominent “temple on Temple Hill”. New circulation routes are provided to improve the experience for the many visitors with accessibility challenges. The sloping site facilitated the design of a stormwater detention system that collects runoff from paved areas into detention areas, vegetated with native plants.