Tropical Conservatory, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

The tropical greenhouse of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) is part of the chemistry and biology building, which the university calls the Haeni Chemistry Biology Building and which OpenStreetMap places at 2101 Fourth Avenue. According to the Wausau Pilot & Review, construction of the $75.1 million building began in April 2016, and the official opening was announced for 14 September 2018. HOK designed it with the Wisconsin firm Potter Lawson, and asumag.com names Miron Construction as contractor. HOK presents it as the first freestanding academic building on campus since 1971 and lists an AIA St. Louis Award of Merit for Architecture in 2020.

In September 2018 the Wausau Pilot & Review announced it "later this fall"; the university's page describes a large tropical greenhouse opened in 2019. In March 2020 a WSAW report showed the greenhouse in use: students had planted nearly every plant, gathered from more than fifteen countries, and the space served as an interactive classroom for botany students.

The university calls it a living classroom, open to the campus and the community, and says it is maintained entirely by student workers.

For HOK, the greenhouse is a glass-walled tropical conservatory that puts science on display and highlights the university's botany program; it is an architectural focal point of the building. At night, according to the firm, it acts as a lantern that lights the campus and draws people toward the building. asumag.com adds that it is visible from the building's interior, extending the idea of science on display.

The building itself totals 176,500 square feet (16,400 m²); it houses 58 teaching and research laboratories, two lecture halls, seven classrooms, a café and a green roof (Wausau Pilot & Review). The grounds include bioswales and rain gardens (asumag.com).

The university's page cites about 300 species and cultivars from Central and South America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific islands, spread over 103 vascular plant families. It names trees, edible plants, vines and aquatic plants. A WSAW report from March 2020 gives a higher figure, about 500 species, and says the plants are arranged by country so that students can see how they grow in their native settings, with specimens obtained from more than fifteen countries.

Students have begun compiling a catalog of ethnobotanically important plants, meaning those valued for human uses. Because the greenhouse serves as a teaching tool, its collections are above all an instructional resource, and a curator of vascular plants in the biology department is the official contact.

The greenhouse is in the Haeni Chemistry Biology Building on the UWSP campus in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. The university describes it as open to the campus and the community; hours vary between the academic year, when opening includes weekends, and the summer, and should be checked on the university's page, which also links a document of visitor etiquette.

According to WSAW, people come to learn but also to walk through, study or take some fresh air among the plants. The university accepts donations through its alumni foundation. The School of Biology's page mentions other greenhouses at the institution but describes only the tropical conservatory.