The Story of St. Mary's Episcopal School

St. Mary’s is celebrating its 175th year of providing a superior educational experience for girls. This excellence is measured by a long history of student achievement. By St. Mary’s standards, “Excellence is not measured merely in numbers. It is cultivated in a school environment that supports and encourages each girl to reach her individual potential.”

It is with this statement in mind we consider the importance of designing their spaces in a way that speaks to their storied history. These structures will, in turn, carry on the legacy of the oldest indepenent school in Tennessee. 

Phase One - Prebuild

The design process started long before the walls of their new building were even completed. This presented its own set of challenges, but for the most part, once we know our dimensions we can move forward with conceptualization very quickly.

Here’s what John Bartholomew had to say about the creative process:

My goal for the interior walls in the Athletic Wellness Center was to tell a story and to inspire future excellence. With the help of Austin Barnes, Evan Diener, and Veronica Tansey at Fleming Architects, the story our walls tell is beautiful. The process was first all about figuring out what type of story we wanted to tell. We have a longstanding history at St. Mary's; in fact, we are celebrating our 175th anniversary this year. So I dug through yearbooks, trophy cases and called alumnae to gather award winners, collegiate athletes, historical photos, and school records.

Once we had the content, I started looking at the blank walls and thinking about how we wanted the story to flow throughout the building. I gave Austin my ideas and content, and he returned to our team with an initial version of the layout. Until this point, none of us had any ideas of how amazing this space could look. We knew the dimensions and the finishes of the building - but the wall graphic concepts made this space come to life.

The process was not over. At this point, we made numerous edits to the design. With the help of Evan Diener, we began to think about the application and installation process. Evan and Austin helped us think through the project and plan how to make updates as records were being broken and new awards were given. It is satisfying to watch visitors enter our gym and stop to read the record boards or view the collegiate wall. The Hall of Fame wall is directly outside my office, and almost daily, I see people pointing out their relative or their friend on the wall. This installation has strengthened the community bond at St. Mary's, and it has also elevated our athletic experience.

Phase Two - Design & Implementation

We started brainstorming together and developed a panel system that would allow for the designated St. Mary’s artifacts to be displayed in a way they would be protected while also being visually accessible to viewers.

Austin Barnes, the designer for these projects, said:

The History Walls were the most challenging aspect. We had handfuls of meetings before designing anything to go over the strategy of the wall/panels and to try to whittle down the actual content that we wanted to incorporate. We had free rein over their entire archive as far as images and artifacts. Thankfully, we worked directly with Laurin Maddux '98, an alumna who volunteered to go through and catalog everything for us. She was our go-to person for the entirety of this project. She did most of the heavy lifting and edited down what content made it onto the final panels.

After the initial meetings, we came up with a templatized outline/structure that would work well across the board for all of their stories and put the onus on her to decide how to populate it. She only had to visit the office once the final panels were complete to help with the composition of the physical artifacts. We definitely couldn't have made sense of everything without her help.

Collegiate Athletes’ Wall

The most important consideration for the Collegiate Wall was designing the sign system to handle regular updates. Every bit about this design is updatable from the individual text panels with student names to the student images themselves.

Hall of Fame

For the Hall of Fame, it was important to ensure the hue of the overlay/coloration in the main hall. They wanted it to match the paint colors they chose for the walls. We did several samples to ensure they would match to confirm they would like the final product the first time. They were happy with the image composition from the moment we showed our proposal, which let us know we had the design dialed in.

Athletic Records & Gymnasium Banners

Organizing the Athletic Walls and Gymnasium Banners was made less arduous by working directly with their Director of Athletics, John Bartholomew. These types of projects are standard for us. However, having well-curated info from the start makes the process go much more smoothly. It only adds to the quality of the final product.

Strength & Conditioning Center

Austin Barnes

Austin Barnes is our Creative Director and the lead designer for the St. Mary’s project.

Aside from being a talented designer, Austin also has a background in architecture, making him a perfect fit for projects where an architectural firm is involved.

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