The single, virtually seamless campus, designed by California-based Gonzalez Goodale Architects, houses 4,200 students in an integrated K-12 of six pilot schools on a 24-acre site.
The school is located on the former site of the Myron-Hunt designed Ambassador Hotel, where the former US Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. The new campus has been designed to preserve unique pieces of the historic hotel, and features striking architectural elements such as a wall of the Cocoanut Grove and the coffee shop. The $578 million Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Community Schools is hailed as the most expensive public high school in the US.
The school features fine art murals as well as a marble memorial to Kennedy, a 19,000 square feet manicured public park, underground parking and a state-of-the-art swimming pool. The towering buildings are unusually shaped and are clad in glass and metal. The interiors feature polished ambience. The school houses an ornate auditorium suitable for hosting the Oscars, and a faculty dining room resembling an upscale restaurant.
New models of sustainable architecture are integrated into the structure, for instance, super high-density site utilisation; indoor-outdoor programme and spaces; under-floor and displacement ventilation; a central mechanical plant; single-ply high albedo roofing; triple-glazing at exposed street conditions; and rapidly renewable/cork, rubber, and linoleum flooring.
The hotel diner, originally designed by noted architect Paul Williams, has been redesigned as a teachers’ lounge. The Cocoanut Grove nightclub is transformed into an auditorium. The grand and famous ballroom where Kennedy was shot will be used as a library. The famed Coconut Grove, a nightclub which once served as the host of the 1938 Academy Awards, was recreated with lighting fixtures and carpeting reminiscent of the period. Outside a bank of flat-screen television with video loops will inform students of the history.
