Pei Residence Halls, New College of Florida

New College of Florida, founded in 1960, invited nine nationally known architects and firms in 1963, among them Louis Kahn, Harry Weese and Walter Gropius's office, to compete for the design of its campus. Its selection committee picked Pei unanimously, and the choice was announced on 23 September 1963. Pei told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that New College was "the greatest challenge" he had ever faced, and that the campus should not be a fashionable piece but should last and be able to adapt to change. Philip Hanson Hiss, the college's first board chair, had brought him in; Hiss was the main driving force of the Sarasota School of Architecture, a modern movement attuned to the climate and setting of Florida's Gulf Coast, and the halls are counted as part of it.

Pei had first wanted to pull down the Charles Ringling Mansion, or College Hall, so that the halls could stand on the bayfront; the site east of U.S. 41 came only as a last resort. He agreed to put up "temporary" student facilities there while the West Campus was being designed and built, after which the East Campus was to become a continuing education and conference centre. Work on the halls began on 21 July 1964, with Bert Brosmith as site architect. The 101 students of the first class, who arrived that year, were first housed at the Landmark Hotel on Lido Key; from late March 1965 they moved into the rooms as each was finished. Pei's student centre, Hamilton Center, was dedicated on 4 May 1967. That same year Pei formally left the project, over money and over disagreements about the design.

In 2012 the Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects placed the halls, together with the student centre and the Academic Center, on its list of Florida's Top 100 Buildings. In 2018 the University of Florida's historic preservation programme chose them as one of fifty flagship works of mid-century modern architecture in the state and recommended that landmark status be considered. In August 2023, after an engineering report raised air-quality concerns caused by mould in the air-conditioning, the college shut all the Pei dorms and moved students into hotels. Its interim president, Richard Corcoran, judged a full renovation too costly, if not impossible, and wanted the buildings put to a new use. With Architecture Sarasota the college ran the "Reimagining Pei" ideas competition; in November 2023 it chose an athletics-centred scheme by the Sarasota firm Sweet Sparkman Architecture & Interiors, which proposed turning the pavilions into offices, shops and sports spaces, though winning carried no commission.

The halls were conceived as a kind of Mediterranean village: three Brutalist-style pavilions in pale grey brick, whose inner courts held small fountains and plantings, cluster around a central plaza. This plaza, the Palm Court, is shaded by twenty-four royal palms set out on a precise geometric plan; for generations it was the heart of social life on campus. Each room, meant for two students and doubling as a study, opens onto a secluded patio or a balcony; it measures about fifteen feet by fifteen (4.6 m a side).

Pei placed a small pond with a jet of water in every court; the fountains were later turned off and the ponds made into small gardens. The East Campus, known as the Pei Campus, also has two other Pei buildings: the Hamilton Center student union and a classroom building.

The pavilions surround the Palm Court on New College's East Campus, which a pedestrian bridge links to the Bayfront campus across U.S. 41.