The $25 million Imagine Forever Campaign honors Paula Smith, her incredible legacy, and the final piece of her 35-year vision: a unified campus, anchored by a new 15,500 square foot space to be called the Design Lab, situated due south of the Labyrinth building on 9th Ave NE. This three-building campus will be a testament to Paula’s lasting vision.

Why?

UCDS has outgrown its home and is bursting at the seams! Over the last 20 years, the Labyrinth taught us that truly unique curricula + thoughtfully designed space yield something much more powerful than the sum of its parts. When you combine that with what we learned during the pandemic about the importance of community and safe spaces, the final piece of Paula’s vision makes even more sense: another campus building, this time wholly-owned, that will ease the current space pressure and allow for future growth. The Design Lab will benefit all current UCDS students and families, and give UCDS the flexibility to continue innovating well into the future.

This 15,500-square-foot space will feature 3 floors of the greenest space available, even factoring in the carbon footprint of its materials! The space will feature:

• Space for a larger Infant-Toddler Education Program (the current waitlist is over 100 families!). This custom-designed space will be modeled on the Reggio Emilia concept, which features atelier spaces young minds can return to over and over to revisit ongoing projects
• New Specialist spaces, including a unique Design Lab with a heavy emphasis on technology
• New teacher-designed spaces that fuel the collaboratively-designed curriculum
• A flexible 3rd-floor space that could easily launch a new middle school program should the UCDS Board of Trustees decide to move forward with this smaller, tech-focused middle school program centered around helping students address who they are in the world and how they would like to make a difference in the broader community

Many UCDS alum families report that they appreciate UCDS more now than they did when they moved on. Why? Because they see the seeds planted so far back at UCDS blossom into truly unique skill sets in their young adults. They see problem solvers not put off by failure and who can often connect dots others don’t see. They see collaborative leaders comfortable out in front uniting disparate stakeholders. They see young adults at ease presenting and defending their ideas. They see compassionate leaders who are interested and interesting.

Watch the following video of Syndiely Tsoungui ’18, sharing how UCDS cultivated her love of math.