The Wellness Center at the College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle, New York houses athletic, physical education and academic programs for the Department of Nursing. The College wanted the facility to express its holistic approach to human wellness- total body, mind and spirit. In response, landscape and building are merged into a spiritual and intellectual experience that is a metaphor for the Garden of Eden. One-third of the program is set below a garden built within the natural topography and reduces the overall mass of the building to be respectful of the residential neighborhood in which it is constructed.