Florida Atlantic Architecture Students Reimagine Everglades Visitor Center

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Florida Atlantic University’s School of Architecture gave its students a hands-on project: to redesign the Shark Valley Visitor Center in the Everglades and to build a model of their design, in hopes of making the park’s visitor experience more memorable.

This collaboration between Florida Atlantic’s architecture program and Everglades National Park reflects a growing emphasis on community engagement in higher education. It also signals a possible transformation of one of the park’s most-visited landmarks, offering young designers a rare chance to influence a national park. 

On April 22, 16 first-year students in the School of Architecture presented their design ideas to Everglades National Park staff at the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center in Homestead. In the audience were members of the park leadership, including Superintendent Pedro Ramos and Deputy Superintendent Sabrina Diaz, as well as their team of rangers, engineers and architects. 

One by one, the students presented their design and the intricacies involved, which made their model unique and effective. 

First-year architecture student Joshua Giraldo said his inspiration for his model was creating a creative space. “When you walk in, you’re kinda greeted by a whole ceiling pattern with a bunch of slopes and pyramids that vary in size, just something you wouldn’t normally expect as a guest walking in,” Giraldo said.

Dr. Joseph Choma, the Director of the School of Architecture at Florida Atlantic, didn’t plan for this to be a real project for the architects at Shark Valley Visitor Center. The idea came to him as he thought about how to build the first-year curriculum. 

He wanted students to “begin by critiquing an existing building and then challenge it,” Choma explained. “I thought that the visitors center was just the right scale and was a perfect opportunity to critique something where so many individuals go.”

After sharing the project concept with the center, Choma said that the staff responded with interest.

“I think more so these projects will make leadership with the Everglades National Park change the way they think about what that can be, and I hope it’ll open their minds to more possibilities. It’ll also change the way they ask questions about what they are looking for in a visitor's center.”

The collaboration is already reshaping park leadership’s thinking. “This was the first of its kind project,” said Allyson Gannett, the spokesperson at Everglades National Park who attended the presentations. According to Gannett, the park is open to more collaborations with students.

Architecture student Dean Morin, a recent recipient of the AIA Fort Lauderdale scholarship, shared his creative vision and what drove his design.

“I wanted it to be a bit more grand,” he said. “So when you approach from the outside, you see something really striking, something that feels like a landmark. And once you go inside, it’s even more.”

Scott Wiggins, also a first-year student in the architecture program, said he wanted a unique approach. 

“Everyone is doing the rule of surface,” Wiggins said. “I wanted to stray away from that and do a different type of operation known as the Blade Operation.” 

“With that,” he explained, “it was shapes carving shapes. I’d take one large shape and another smaller shape and tweak the smaller one to carve out the center of the large shape, and that created my roof structure.”

In addition to architectural design elements, many of the presenters took inspiration from the Everglades landscape and the lush forests that surround the center, so that visitors can better experience the beauty of the Everglades inside and out. 

After the students presented their work, Ramos, who serves as the Superintendent at Everglades National Park and Dry Tortugas National Park, told students that these concepts “have the potential to become a reality” and to keep doing the work they are doing. 

For his innovative program that bridged academic theory with real-world practice, Choma was awarded an official coin for distinguished service.