The SAMi Environmental Learning Center
A partnership between Tacoma Public Schools, Metro Parks, and the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, the Environmental Learning Center is an innovative joint-use facility whose primary tenant is the Science and Math Institute (SAMi)–an alternative public high school within Tacoma Public Schools that emphasizes STEM and the natural sciences.
The award-winning new 30,000 sf education and community facility houses labs, classrooms, administrative, and gathering spaces and was built on a constrained site, directly adjacent to Point Defiance Zoo and surrounded by old growth forest and the Puget Sound.
The Grand Award, Excellence in Concrete – WACA, 2018
Grand Prize Winner – Learning by Design Magazine, 2018
Citation Award, AIA SW Washington, 2017
