Community STE[A]M Academy

Community STE[A]M Academy set out to transform a 67,000-square-foot former YMCA into a K-12 school built around collaboration, movement, and hands-on learning, with a building that supports teaching rather than dividing it into fixed classrooms.

Beginning in 2020, DAC assessed the existing YMCA building and worked with school leadership to understand how the curriculum could inform the building itself, developing a plan that adapted the existing facility around the school's educational model and long-term goals.

DAC worked closely with the school board to develop a curriculum-informed design that supported the requirements for Battelle STEM designation while making purposeful use of the former YMCA. Flexible furniture, movable wall systems, and adaptable learning spaces let rooms change with different activities and teaching methods.

DAC's involvement went beyond design. Working alongside school leadership, DAC helped secure more than $750,000 in financial support and led onsite tours that helped families understand how the former YMCA could become a school.

The design gives Community STE[A]M Academy a framework for how the former YMCA can support its educational model, with spaces that encourage collaboration, movement, and hands-on work.

DAC has stayed with the school well past the drawings, continuing to advise its leadership on facility decisions. Curriculum-informed design is not a document handed over at the end of a phase. It is a way of thinking about a building that keeps being useful to the people teaching in it.