Photo: Mark Kempf Photography, Courtesy of 3A Composites USA
To replace a 1950s-era brick school building with poor acoustics and minimal private learning spaces, Lawal Scott Erickson Architects Inc. designed the three-story, 157,000-square-foot Quora Education Center.
Students in grades 5 through 12 attend, and the center has flexible learning spaces for small groups and one-on-one instruction. It houses sensory rooms with natural lighting and soft, movable furniture. The exterior of the building features metal composite material (MCM) panels in four colors: a light brown, rust color, blue and green colors.
Atomic Architectural Sheet Metal Inc. installed 3A Composites USA Inc.’s 4-mm-thick ALUCOBOND PLUS MCM panels in Rusted Metal (12,500 square feet), Chestnut (9,600 square feet), Amazon (800 square feet) and Ocean (1,400 square feet).
Guy Davidson, AIA, senior designer at Lawal Scott Erickson Architects, says, “Given the former building’s inadequate site and play areas, I began to think about maximizing the children’s experience in their new play areas and how to make the building reflect that feeling. The Chestnut wood finish and Rusted Metal panels were an easy, natural fit into the natural landscape idea. Those colors became the unifying overall body of the building. The building’s separate programs came to be signified by the use of the Amazon and Ocean panels, especially at the separate entries for these programs. I wanted kids looking from the playground to the building to see the sparkle of the Ocean blue and Amazon green panels and be uplifted but not distressed. The new site is delightfully expansive and natural. I think that natural feeling was also delivered in our building design.”
Davidson adds, “The idea was to amplify the building entries to create individual identities into a building where seven separate programs coexisted. Students would know: ‘That’s my entry.’”
Davidson says the sky-like blue of the Ocean blue color and flora-like green color of the Amazon panels fit the Rusted Metal and Chestnut colors in the building’s overall color scheme. “[Students] would enjoy that flash of color as well as the ability to recognize their individual entry from the large play fields in front of the building.”
