Rosa O. Valdes STEM + Innovation Center Receives AIA Education Facility Design Award
The AIA Education Facility Design Awards program celebrates innovative projects across the learning continuum, from early childhood to higher education.
"The Education Facility Design Award recognizes projects that represent state-of-the-art learning environments, including early childhood, K-12, alternative, community and technical colleges, schools of higher education, corporate or other specialized training centers, and non-traditional learning environments."
We are honored to have Greenhill School’s Rosa O. Valdes STEM + Innovation Center recognized with a 2026 AIA Education Facility Design Award, announced at the AIA Conference on Architecture and Design Awards Gala on June 10th. A new home for middle and upper school math, science, and innovation at Greenhill School, the project provides opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration across an array of classroom types, while serving as a tactile teaching tool for sustainability.
Greenhill School, an independent, coeducational school located in the Dallas suburb of Addison, engaged our practice to design a forward-thinking STEM facility that encouraged students to problem-solve and collaborate in new ways, while fitting within a campus of modest buildings that embraced their surroundings. The resulting design integrates flexible classrooms, fabrication and robotics labs, and makerspaces while distilling familiar campus elements – including brick, wood, natural light, and indoor-outdoor connections – to create a contextual building that feels deeply rooted to its place.
The first mass timber building in Addison and one of the first in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area, the project offers a warm, natural framework for varied activities, with visual connections between flexible learning environments and sheltered outdoor areas. A green roof and courtyard rain garden showcase native and pollinator-friendly planting and water management, while the design team also restored the school’s cistern to support water cycle education.
Congratulations to our clients, Greenhill School, and project team including Walter P Moore (Structural Engineer); OJB (Landscape Architect); Westwood (Civil Engineer); DBR (MEP Engineer); Holmes Keogh Associates (Code Consultant); and Scott + Reid General Contractors, with photography by Nic Lehoux.
