X-Studio

Photos by Marble Street Studios

X-Studio was conceived to address the community’s aspiration for students better prepared for a future workforce and for jobs that end the cycle of poverty, Explora built a STEM Education and Workforce Development Center, called X Studio, for our future science leaders, ages 13-adult. The center prepares students for STEM jobs, accelerates innovation and entrepreneurship, and generates private investment. This Center enables new learning experiences, including new science and computer labs for physics, chemistry, robotics, and coding. The program includes a Maker Space that provides engineering and fabrication opportunities,  flexible classroom space for expanded programs, a teen lounge, and an exhibit hall that showcases exhibits related to the local STEM industry.

Design Concept

The X-Studio is conceived as a place of transformation—where Explora’s child-focused programs evolve into a launchpad for teen innovation and future STEM careers. It is a space where curiosity matures into capability, and where ideas are shaped into skills that point toward real-world professional pathways. This spirit of growth and evolution is embedded in both the program and the architecture itself.

In plan, the studio unfolds as a sequence of Learn, Make, and Design zones, each distinct yet visually and physically connected. The transitions between them are celebrated through transparency, daylight, and layered views, turning movement through the space into a visible journey of transformation. Light, glass, and openness mark the passage from concept to creation, reinforcing the idea that learning is an active, unfolding process.

The building envelope carries forward the language of the existing facility, but reimagines it as if caught mid-metamorphosis. Familiar materials and geometries begin to shift, overlap, and peel apart, wrapping and unfurling like a cocoon in the process of becoming something new. As these layers separate, the color-coded systems and inner workings of the building are revealed, allowing structure, infrastructure, and technology to become part of the educational experience. In this way, the X-Studio itself becomes a teaching tool—an architectural expression of growth, discovery, and the exciting moment just before transformation takes flight.

Client: Explora Science Museum, Albuquerque, NM

Size: 55,000 sf existing building/3,500sf renovation/8,000sf addition

Project design as Principal Architect at Studio Southwest Architects