RE LOG Spring '25

6 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2025 By Beth Dunlop Laurinda Spear ’68 would be the first to argue that she is not Wonder Woman, but the facts of her life and the trajectory of her career might suggest otherwise. She is a graduate of Everglades School for Girls, Brown University, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and Florida International University’s landscape architecture program. She has had a stellar and groundbreaking career in both architecture and landscape architecture, with work that has helped create the Miami we know today and continues to shape our thinking about the future, not just of the city but, more importantly, the environment. Spear has brought wisdom, wit, artistry and intellect to bear at the world-renowned firm she helped found shortly after she earned her graduate degree. That firm, Arquitectonica, has embraced the world of design quite literally from the ground up – from the landscape at the Perez Art MuseumMiami to the city skyline, from a building named the Babylon (now demolished) to a South Beach parking garage that invokes the hanging gardens of Babylon – as well as several buildings on the middle school campus: the main entry and gymnasium, science building and media center. Ransom Everglades selected her for the RE Alumni Founders’ Award for Distinguished Service to the Community in 2005. Decades after her emergence as one of Miami’s most influential architects, she continues to immerse herself in environment- focused projects through Arquitectonica’s three “studios” that work under her guidance. She also makes time for engagement with her high school alma mater as a member of the Everglades Steering Committee. Her day job is to help build Miami’s history; in her free time, she seeks to preserve and highlight the history of the Everglades School for Girls. Laurinda Spear ’68 has dedicated her life to building our city and community Maven of Miami Architecture 1968 yearbook photo Laurinda Spear ’68 is seated, far left