The Academic Commons building for Episcopal High School was designed through a process of interacting with faculty, students, parents, and experts where we discussed the school’s goals of embracing 21st century learning practices. It was through these discussions and exercises that Episcopal’s iSTEMx building, or Academic Commons, was born. This facility allows faculty to apply integrated and project based learning methods to their curriculum. The building features that support the 21st century learning environment including flexible studios, flexible classrooms, and discipline-specific labs typically only seen in professional settings. The design supports an intense learning curriculum of Science, Technology, Engineering, Robotics, Entrepreneurship, and Math programs.
For this project, Episcopal School and Crump Wilson applied to, and was accepted by, Harvard University to attend their “Learning Environments of Tomorrow” program – highly specialized and intense workshops to learn more about integrated and project based learning. This afforded us the opportunity to hear from the leading experts about where the 21st Century education is heading and about the type of building design needed to support this new way of learning.