The Polk County Science Building was the largest and most complex of all the Frank Lloyd Wright designed structures at Florida Southern College. Built between 1952 and 1958 and completed at a cost three times its original estimate, this multi-use teaching facility (incorporating the only Wright designed planetarium anywhere) of some 61,000 SF in area had slowly deteriorated over time, until it had become effectively unusable by the early 1990’s.

The design team was commissioned in 1996 to transform the building into a into a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary laboratory and classroom facilities for physics, mathematics, biology, and chemistry departments, removing later non-Wright designed extensions, re-building its decayed fabric, inserting new uses and replacing all its building systems, which had become life expired.

The team was able to demonstrate, with the College’s support, that with careful planning, considered interventions and the installation of new building and laboratory systems, that the life of this historic building could be extended as a functional and adaptable science facility. Central to the architectural approach was the consolidation and re-arrangement of varied uses - laboratories, seminar areas, lecture theaters, administration, social and support areas - in order to optimize the building’s usability, and the careful insertion of new elements designed to juxtapose and harmonize with Wright’s architecture.

The project was delivered within a budget significantly less than the cost of a new science facility, further justifying the retention and adaptive reuse of the original building. This Polk County Science Building is part of the Florida Southern College Architectural District listed on the US Department of the Interior National Register of Historic Places. AIA Award - 2001, Merit Award for Architecture.