Acadia National Park, the oldest national park in the northeast, is home to lush woodlands, shimmering lakes, and jaw-dropping views of the Atlantic Ocean. To protect the park’s 50,000 acres of land and serve its 3.4 million annual visitors, Acadia’s dedicated administrative and maintenance staff work from a 10-acre campus inside the park. EYP is working with the National Park Service (NPS) to reimagine and reconstruct this campus with new, safe, and energy efficient structures, improving the staff experience.

Campus Master Plan

EYP and NPS evaluated opportunities to redesign the campus to increase operational efficiency, improve site circulation, address viewshed issues, and mitigate risks to the adjacent watershed. The revised layout accommodates 80,000 square feet of new buildings along with new roadways, parking areas, and site utilities. It also removes more than 20,000 square feet of unsafe park structures.

New Maintenance Facility

Following the master plan, EYP designed a new 27,000-square-foot maintenance operations complex, which increases capacity, improves accessibility, and addresses climate change. The facility includes workshops, offices, and storage for the maintenance staff, as well as a large multipurpose space that accommodates 80 people for campus-wide meetings.

Acadia is one of the most beautiful undisturbed landscapes in the United States, so protecting its natural resources was a critical goal for the new facility. We derived its form, color, and orientation from careful analysis of the existing landscape and environmental conditions, and we used virtual models and physical mockups to assess the visual impact of design options. Every aspect of the design was informed by this process, from the angle of the roof to the strategic reforestation of the existing site.