A Place for Discovery: The STREAM Center and the Power of Purposeful Design

When Marilyn Gardner looks at the STREAM Center, she doesn’t just see a striking addition to campus; she sees the quiet resolution of years of constraint. After retiring as CFO in 2014, she remained on as project manager through 2019, guiding a project that began not with construction, but with careful unraveling. Before a single wall could rise, the site itself had to be freed: shipping containers filled with theater costumes and athletic gear relocated, new storage carved out “in the back 40, way back there,” and a campus footprint subtly reimagined. What she describes as a kind of “logistical Tetris” was only the beginning. Beneath the surface lay deeper challenges: an aging well that “had to be blown up. They actually put some sort of charge down there,” utility systems rerouted, and even a “massive, massive eucalyptus tree,  probably six or eight feet in diameter,” removed to make way for what would come next.

Yet the STREAM Center was never simply about space. It was a response to pressure building quietly over time. There were overcrowded classrooms, outdated labs, and a science curriculum straining against its physical limits. Spencer Shively remembers those years clearly. As a former science teacher, he describes a reality that was “cramped, crowded, dated,” where ingenuity often stood in for infrastructure. “We were just always trying to improvise, just kind of duct tape everything together,” he recalls. Labs were shared, equipment was limited, and even the most dedicated teaching required constant adjustment. There was energy and commitment, certainly, but also a ceiling on what could be offered. “It ultimately limited us,” he says plainly, especially in an era when “we were focusing on ramping up our AP science offerings” and didn’t have facilities that could support them.

The opening of the STREAM Center changed that almost overnight. For Shively, walking into his new classroom for the first time felt like stepping into a different educational world. “I felt like I was teaching at like a junior college or even a college,” he says, still sounding a bit awed by the memory. The shift was not only physical but palpable. Preparation became intentional rather than hurried. Materials were organized, accessible, and ready. Instead of racing between classes like an “Indiana 500 pit crew,” teachers could focus on execution. Students, in turn, entered spaces designed for them. Lab stations where “they could be working on a project as a group of four,” spaces that finally matched the ambitions of both teacher and learner. Even small realizations, “I need a step ladder to get to the top shelf,” spoke to an abundance that had simply never existed before.

That design has reshaped the way students learn. Where earlier classes required improvisation, the STREAM Center enables repetition, experimentation, and risk, the essential ingredients of confidence. Freshmen now perform labs that were once reserved for upperclassmen. They handle real equipment, make real observations, and, importantly, make mistakes they can learn from. “It’s more reps,” Shively explains. “That’s what builds confidence.” Students who once might have hesitated begin to see themselves differently. When science becomes something you do rather than something you only study, curiosity deepens and persistence follows.

The impact extends beyond individual classrooms. What was once a quiet, utilitarian stretch of campus — a parking lot, a pair of portables, Company and athletics storage — has become a center of gravity. The STREAM courtyard now hums with activity, from informal gatherings and theater rehearsals spilling into shared space to robotics testing and CO2 car races. The building’s very presence reshaped its surroundings, prompting new courtyards, walkways, and connections that have softened the edges of campus into something more continuous, more alive. As Gardner reflects, the STREAM Center “upped the game from an academic standpoint” and stands today as “the most gorgeous building on campus, for sure, especially if you look from the new field out back.”

And yet, for all its beauty, the building tells a quieter story of balance and stewardship. Decisions about materials like where to invest in brick and where to rely on stucco reflect a constant awareness of mission and means. “Brick would have been lovely,” Gardner admits, “but too expensive,” so the team made careful tradeoffs to ensure the building remained “thematic with the rest of the campus.” Even its design resists isolation, linked by a bridge to the 300 building so it “was not a separate piece all by itself.” Outside, a landscaped courtyard with a rain garden and stepping pads offers a small but telling detail. Gardner still smiles at its everyday use: “you see a kid walking right across them and I smile because that’s why we put it in.”

In the years since its completion, the STREAM Center has continued to unfold its potential. Programs have expanded into spaces not fully imagined at the outset. What began as a robotics room has grown into something closer to a maker space, fueling new interest and new pathways. “The building was almost ahead of where we were with our curriculum,” Shively notes, and even now, “it’s still giving, still expanding opportunities for us.” Integrated science courses now introduce freshmen to a unified view of biology, chemistry, and physics. An approach that “never would have been possible” in the old configuration.

For Shively, now serving as VP of Mission and Student Life, the deeper significance comes into focus through a Lasallian lens. A commitment to our Lasallian core principle of “quality education,” he explains, is inseparable from the integration of faith and reason. He references Pope John Paul II’s 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio that emphasizes both faith and reason are needed in Catholic education and in life. The STREAM Center embodies that integration. It provides the tools for rigorous inquiry while affirming the broader purpose of that inquiry: to understand, to question, to grow.

It is tempting to measure the building by what it offers; modern labs, expanded curriculum, and beautiful design. But its true measure may lie in what it has made possible. Alumni return and trace their paths back to moments within those walls, decisions made in the midst of experiments, interests sparked by hands-on work. For some, those moments have shaped careers, and by extension, lives. “It’s not at all a stretch,” Shively reflects, “to say that it’s been a life-changing addition to our community.”

Without the STREAM Center, De La Salle would still be resourceful. “Duct tape will always be a thing,” Shively says with a smile. But something essential would be missing, not only in facilities, but in identity. The school’s aspiration to lead, to offer the fullest expression of a Lasallian education, would remain constrained by the limits of its space.

Instead, the STREAM Center stands as a quiet declaration: that environment matters, that investment in learning is an act of belief, and that when space finally aligns with vision, the results extend far beyond the walls themselves.