Modern Chapel Addition

Tranquility Garden Columbarium

Hillside Mausoleum

Fort Hamilton Gatehouse

Gothic Revival Entry Gate

Founded in 1838 Green-Wood, a National Historic Landmark, was one of the first rural cemeteries in America. It is comprised of 478 spectacular acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds, and paths, throughout which exists one of the largest outdoor collections of 19th- and 20th-century statuary and mausoleums. PBDW has been working with Green-Wood since 1995, completing multiple projects within a 20-year span. These projects included a mix of historic preservation and restoration work as well as 30,700 SF of new construction.

PBDW’s first project in 1995 was the restoration of the 1861 Richard Upjohn Gothic Revival entrance gates. This led to our revival of the 1911 Warren & Wetmore Chapel, which had sat unused for several decades, suffering from water infiltration. Our most recent restoration project was the slate and copper restoration at the Fort Hamilton Parkway Gatehouse.

Our design interventions at the cemetery were carefully and thoughtfully devised in order to meet the needs of the cemetery, which is both a landmark and a functioning burial place. Our first new construction project was the design of a columbarium built on a site between the Modern Chapel and the Historic Warren & Wetmore Chapel. Tranquility Garden is a series of pavilions in a horseshoe configuration inside an existing field of in-ground burial urns enclosing an inner reflecting pool. As we designed the columbarium we were asked to envision a mausoleum set into a steep hill at the far side of the cemetery. The Hillside Mausoleum is a design of stone-clad blocks, joined by airy, glazed atriums that link the surrounding landscape to the structure. We doubled the Modern Chapel, designing a much-needed new crematory, chapel and columbarium.

Lucy G. Moses Award, New York Landmarks Conservancy, 2014

Building Brooklyn Award, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, 2015