MIAMI—Miami Dade College (MDC) recently unveiled its new Center for Learning, Innovation and Simulation during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Scheduled to welcome its first students this fall, the technology-rich facility will ensure students are well-prepared to succeed in the rapidly changing health care industry, enable MDC to expand its health sciences offerings, and open the door to new partnerships with Miami-area health care providers.

Located on the MDC Medical Campus in the heart of Miami’s Health District, the new five-story, 135,000-square-foot facility will accommodate the continued growth of some of the college’s most in-demand programs – including emergency medical services, nuclear medicine technology, nursing and physician assistant – and allow for the addition of new programs such as central sterile processing and surgical technology.

Harvard Jolly was the architect of record. Kahler Slater was the design and health sciences education architect, providing programming, planning and design expertise.

An advanced medical simulation center occupies the building’s entire third floor, enabling students to gain essential hands-on experience working in a variety of clinical environments, including emergency, surgery, labor and delivery, primary care and home health care. It features 15 hospital/patient rooms with high-fidelity mannequins, a simulated ambulance, a simulated one-bedroom apartment, 10 exam rooms where students will interact with actors specially trained to portray patients, a 5-sided CAVE virtual reality space, debrief rooms where students and faculty gather to review just-completed exercises, and a partner/sponsor space.

In addition to the simulation center, the Center for Learning, Innovation and Simulation includes a variety of classroom, collaboration and gathering spaces. Among them are active learning classrooms; a 300-person multi-purpose conference center; a 150-person tiered lecture facility with technology at each seat; smaller lecture classrooms; wet labs; physical therapy, occupational therapy and physician assistant labs; a radiology suite and student break-out spaces.

While the Center will primarily be used by MBC students and faculty, it will also be available to local health care organizations for staff training and research.

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An independent college-preparatory school for students from pre-K through 12th grade, the Dwight-Englewood School maintains an enrollment of approximately 900 students. To offer these students top quality STEM-based education, the Hajjar STEM Center will house eight new labs and seven classrooms for physics, biology, chemistry, robotics, and mathematics. The approximately 27,000 square foot building will also be home to the STEM faculty, a student greenhouse and a flexible school gathering space/robotics workspace.

“The growing global focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has created an urgent need to prepare our children, our future leaders, to become innovators in these STEM fields and to learn the way of thinking that engaged study with STEM accomplish,” Head of School Dr. Rodney V. De Jarnett said in an address at the groundbreaking. “Our School’s belief that we must educate our children to ‘meet the challenges of a changing world and make it better’ remains the driving force behind this vision.”

The facility was designed by international architecture firm Gensler, which also completed projects such as St. Phillip’s Academy in Newark, N.J. and the D’Angelo Center at St. John’s University in Queens, N.Y. However, the design process was highly collaborative, involving Gensler architects and numerous members of the Dwight-Englewood School community.

According to an article on the project by Gensler education practice area leader Mark Thaler, the team met with educators to discuss their curricula and to understand how their facilities supported academic approaches, then designed the building with an emphasis on how specific areas would interact with each other. De Jarnett and a group of key stakeholders also visited more than a dozen STEM facilities throughout the region to glean design inspiration.

International construction firm Gilbane Building Company was selected to serve as the project’s construction manager, and expects to completion the new facility by the fall of 2015.

“We’re thrilled to create this unique, innovative learning environment for students that will restructure the school’s math and science curriculum,” said Ed Stevenson, Gilbane’s senior project executive, in a release. “We’ll work to ensure the STEM Building is a great source of pride for the Dwight-Englewood community for years to come.”

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