Miami Dade College Academic Support Center

The Academic Support Center seamlessly unites both learning and administrative functions into a cohesive whole. The new building, located on the eastern entry corridor of the campus, centralizes all student services departments for the more than 120,000 students and includes 21 prototypical 390-square-foot classrooms, a resource and testing center, and admission offices.

The building is itself a learning tool, helping the college achieve its ten Learning Outcomes, among which is to describe how natural systems function and recognize the impact humans make on the environment. The project includes two outdoor learning spaces. One of the spaces surrounds a “rain clock,” which is a dry retention structure that adjusts seasonally to spatially register stormwater. An open-grid paving system conceals a shallow custom rain water cistern by the main entry, beautifully illustrating roof rain-water harvesting.