‘Iolani School will break ground this summer on a $23 million multipurpose center envisioned as a place to showcase 21st-century learning practices, with space for student collaboration, a machine shop for popular robotics programs, a state-of-the-art library and a rooftop garden.
The school plans to use the center’s spaces for revamped "curricular agendas that actually take us outside the box, outside the four walls of the classroom," said Carey Inouye, dean of instruction at ‘Iolani.
The four-story, 40,000-square-foot Sullivan Center will be built in the center of the Kamoku Street campus and will feature environmentally adapted and energy-efficient designs and a facade made largely of glass.
The school has raised about $8 million for construction, starting with a lead gift from Joanna Lau Sullivan, widow of Foodland supermarket founder Maurice Sullivan, and her family.
The amount of the gift is not being disclosed.
Inouye said the center is meant to offer open, flexible learning spaces where students can collaborate and work on big projects. "We want to really provide a place that will support each student’s passion," he said.
Students in kindergarten through 12th grade will have access to the building, whose ground floor will have a "community area" and space for the school’s robotics programs. Robotics is popular at the school where about 150 students in first through 12th grade participate in programs.
The second floor will have a new library, archives and seminar rooms, while the third floor will be a planning and staging area for community service projects. It will have a media and video production area.
On the fourth floor the school plans to install movable labs for science classes, a conference room and "flexible project space."
The roof will have an urban garden for hands-on lessons about food sustainability.
The new center will be built where the school’s library now sits.
