With the opening of our new building, UPrep’s future vision will arrive: The ULab will provide inspiring learning spaces that match the outstanding teaching and learning that occur at our school every day. As we await opening day this fall, here’s a peek at 10 of the ULab’s fabulous features.

1 Upper School Hub: Not only will our school enrollment grow by 30 percent, but the ULab will be a place the Upper School can call their own. High school students will be together in community here. They will also easily connect to the signature educational experiences available to them, such as pursuing their LaunchPad projects, researching semester away programs, and planning their next adventure in the Global and Outdoor Education Office.

2 Light: Natural light will suffuse the ULab. The Beitel Family Commons will feature two levels of floor-to-ceiling windows, and vertical floor-to-ceiling windows will brighten every room in the ULab. Assistant Head of School for Finance and Operations Susan Lansverk calls the third floor “the canopy floor” because it will be up in the branches and the clerestory windows and skylights will evoke where the tops of trees receive rays of sun.

3 Collaboration Spaces: The ULab will have many different-sized spaces scattered throughout the building, where students, faculty, and staff will work together and socialize, and we will call those collaboration spaces “co-labs.” On the second floor, two co-labs will be on the skyway-style pass-through space. Throughout the building, there will be comfortable living room–style seating spots, nooks with tables and chairs, and tall cyber bars perfect for computer work. A row of upholstered benches, each with a hard-sided workspace, will sit between the third-floor classrooms. Twelve faculty members will have desks in the Interdisciplinary Faculty Office. The ULab will house four conference rooms, and the College Counseling Office will include a large student workspace.

4 Exceptional Trees: Three exceptional trees live on this part of the campus, which means they are protected by the City of Seattle due to their unique historical, ecological, and aesthetic value. Indeed, the deodar cedar tree will reach above the roofline and will feel like part of the architecture on the building’s west side, with its supple branches just outside the windows. The name “deodar” derives from Sanskrit and means “timber of the gods.” The common hawthorn, with its white, scented, springtime blossoms and red berries, will reside near the building’s southwest side. Look for the Engelmann spruce, a native tree with a life span of more than 400 years, on the northwest corner of campus.

5 The Beitel Family Commons and the Plaza: The center of the ULab will be the doubleheight
Beitel Family Commons, a light-filled gathering locale for independent study, affinity group meetings, and community events. Check out its three living room–style spots, a central area with large worktables, and a few small gathering spaces with round tables. Two sets of double doors will open to the entry plaza, a courtyard with lush greenery that will also function as a classroom learning and community event space. There will be a seamless indoor-outdoor connection between the Commons and the plaza, with the paving pattern running through both spaces and irregular rectangular shapes of the building mass reflected in the benches and planting areas.

6 Makerspace: The collaborative 1,123-square-foot Makerspace will include the newest tech
tools, including laser cutters, virtual reality (VR) headsets, soldering tools, and 3D scanners and
printers. Students will gain hands-on experience and earn professional certifications in design,
engineering, and digital arts within this space. Upper School classes will actively engage in projects
here. Picture students in French class speaking with native speakers on VR headsets and Engineering
students constructing miniature catapults. Both Upper and Middle School students will use the
Makerspace for co-curricular programs, such as Robotics, Video Game Design, Drone Programming,
and eSports Clubs.

7 Flexible Classroom Spaces: The ULab will contain 10 Upper School classrooms. In the Wellness Studio on the lower level, Pumas will participate in PE classes, athletic practices, and Dance and Yoga classes. On the first floor, the double classroom will be ideal for multidisciplinary classes. There will be three project-style classrooms with sinks on the second floor. The five classrooms on the third floor will be conducive to seminar-style, collaborative learning, and two of these rooms will have moveable walls, so classes can work together easily.

8 Rooftop Deck: Pumas will have a stellar, bird’s-eye view of Dahl Playfield and downtown
Seattle from here. This space will meet our goal of adding more outdoor space for learning and
community programming. While students will only access the deck with an adult, we envision club and advisory meetings, planned classroom activities, adult volunteer meetings, and community events happening on the rooftop deck.

9 Green Spaces: On the ULab campus, native and adapted plants will create a Pacific Northwest
woodland experience, with some unique junctures like an open meadow in the entry plaza and a rocky alpine slope near the parking lot. Several trees removed for construction were processed at a local mill, and this wood will be used to build the beautiful reception desk and benches in the entry plaza. Some of the removed logs will be nurse logs sustaining new growth in the landscape. We love this story of the wood coming back home and continuing to enhance the experiences both outside and inside the building.

10 Community Funded: The ULab is being built thanks to our community. With a total goal of $25 million, this capital campaign is the largest fundraising effort in school history. Thanks to the generous early support of our UPrep Board Trustees and major gift-level donors, we have already raised $18.9 million at the date of publication. We need all of you—alumni, parents, guardians, grandparents, and friends—to help us raise the final $6.1 million. We invite our entire community to invest in our students’ future. Please contact Liz Van Hoy to discuss opportunities at LVanHoy@universityprep.org or 206.832.1147. ■