Reef discovery center project

The large interior is dedicated to a public-friendly educational area that features several state-of-the-art electronic interactive displays, living reef exhibits, and more.

Reef Discovery Center facility rendering
Florida’s coral reefs have sustained extensive damage due to disease, pollution, ocean warming, and other environmental stressors. Numerous local and national organizations are working to address these problems and to restore our reefs to their former healthy state. It takes collaboration between dedicated scientists, environmentalists, government agencies, and the general public to mitigate these threats.

The large interior is dedicated to a public-friendly educational area that features several state-of-the-art electronic interactive displays, living reef exhibits, and more.

Limited-access area on the one side of the building for professionals using university-level equipment to maintain threatened corals, potentially salvaged from regional reef and port projects.

Exclusive space to living corals that will help with
critical coral research, education, and propagation to complement and enhance state-wide reef restoration efforts.

Credit: computer renderings of the RDC created by Dawn Elise Interiors - dawneliseinteriors.com

Interactive Reef Wall

Interactive Living Reef Wall

Interactive Living Reef Wall

The interactive reef wall will provide an immersive experience for visitors. Projections of fish and other marine life appear on the wall and react to the visitor’s motion, as if the visitor were a part of the display. For example, in the projection, small corals can be seen being transplanted to the ocean floor. Parrotfish biting and often killing these newly transplanted corals is a significant bottleneck in reef restoration efforts. The visitor will be able to “shoo” the parrotfish away so that protective structures can be placed over the transplanted corals. The parrotfish can then approach the transplanted corals, but find it impossible to bite them. The interactive reef wall will periodically introduce new displays, so the visitor experience will not be static.

Interactive Reef Floor

Invasive lionfish

Interactive Reef Floor

Similarly, a floor projection will allow visitors to interact with marine life (e.g., stepping close will cause fish to swim away). For example, lionfish are an invasive species that have overwhelmed the Florida reef tract and coral reefs throughout the Caribbean. Visitors can make the lionfish swim away. Shortly after, beautiful reef fishes will take their place, creating a reef display representative of how our reefs looked before the lionfish invasion. As is the case for the interactive reef wall, the interactive reef floor will periodically introduce new displays.