Located at the entrance to the campus, the new STEM building welcomes the students to the historic Ransom Everglades Coconut Grove Campus. The school's dedication to academic excellence, the arts, and next-generation environments for teaching and learning are meant to be showcased with the strategic location of this building. The 45,000 SF Center for Science and Math designed by Perkins&Will provides faculty and students a multidisciplinary approach in learning and teaching. At the heart of the concept lies collaboration, where team-based learning and promotes an environment of thought leadership, experimentation, and creativity.

The interior of the building is designed with as much flexibility as possible, allowing the facility to adapt and morph its spaces, making this building one of the leading STEM high school centers in the country. In the laboratories, biology, chemistry and physics integrate with state-of-the-art fabrication and maker labs. At the front of the building, framed by the outdoor student commons and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning incubator, lies the aquatics lab. The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning incubator is a center for faculty, administrators, students, and visitors to exchange ideas, exhibit new trends in education, and elevate the national dialogue on STEM education.

The forward-thinking and innovative ideas of the program are carried to the design of all aspects of the building. From environmentally responsible strategies that allow for careful calibration of daylighting, acoustics, and technology-enabled spaces, design drivers included creating spaces that promote creativity, experimentation, learning, freedom of expression, social responsibility, leadership, inclusion, respect, and professionalism.

As learning occurs at all times of day and in all kinds of environments nowadays, formal classrooms or laboratories have become only one of the many spaces where students and teachers interact. Therefore buildings such as this have made it its mission to create informal spaces, emphasizing the “space in-between.”

This STEM building provides a wide variety of these types of informal learning spaces. The main circulation spine creates hubs of collaboration, where transparency is celebrated and spaces can be reconfigured at each level. An outdoor grand stairway or student commons allows faculty and students to hold impromptu lectures, presentations, exhibitions, theater performances, or guest lectures. The building acts as a lantern and a living laboratory to the campus and showcases the future of STEM and Ransom Everglade’s tenacious dedication to continuing leadership in Academic Excellence.

Project facts

Architects: Perkins&Will
Location: Miami, United States
Area: 45000 ft²
Year: 2021
Design Team: Pat Bosch, Steven Turckes, Elina Cardet, Lincoln Linder, Alejandro Branger, Neyda Otero
Clients: Ransom Everglades School
Manufacturers: AutoDesk, HUFCOR, Armstrong, Clear Choice Prestige Series 2020 Sliding Door System, Gate Precast Company, Husseyseatway, Kawneer system, MDC Wall, Trespa Pura

All Photographs © Robin Hill

The drawings © Perkins&Will

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