By Florida Catholic staff - Florida Catholic
MIAMI | St. Brendan High School’s new Innovation Center has received a 2017 Outstanding Project Award of Excellence from Learning By Design magazine.
According to the magazine, the award was bestowed by a jury of six education, facility design and architecture professionals who reviewed entries from around the country. The judging was based on seven criteria: innovation, 21st century learning, community needs, interior design, sustainability, functional design and judging components.
Projects were recognized as outstanding if they “exemplified contemporary standards and contain design attributes one might emulate in a new space design,” explained the editors in the magazine’s fall 2017 edition.
The Innovation Center was designed by Miami-based Zyscovich Architects and dedicated in September 2016. The center comprises state-of-the-art STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) laboratories and classrooms, common areas where students can gather for group projects, private study and socialization, an auditorium/flex space, a television studio, and offices for administration and the guidance department.
To facilitate cross-curricular and project-based learning, the specialized STEM labs feature movable double-glass partitions to expand the teaching spaces into the common areas. The Biology Lab has operable glass partitions surrounding the patient treatment area where HAL, the school’s Advanced Multipurpose Patient Simulator, resides.
Technology-rich lounges — with names such as the Genius Bar, Student Commons and Grand Social Stair, which features comfortable bleacher-like seating — provide students with places to meet and study and make spending time on campus more enjoyable.
