Students in Utah’s underserved area of Salt Lake Valley have a new, state-of-the-art technical education facility to help prepare them for successful careers in regional business and industry. Designed by Portland, Ore., and Seattle-based SRG Partnership, along with ajc architects, Salt Lake City, the Westpointe Workforce Training and Education Center (WWTEC) at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC), showcases hands-on workforce education for the 21st century.
One-stop technical education center prepares students for careers in STEM
Photo: Alan Blakely
Technical Education
Aligning with the school’s mission to be the area’s primary provider of post-secondary technical workforce education, the WWTEC supports the community’s training needs by providing a flexible, high-quality space to address the growing shortage in skills-based workforce.
The 121,000-square-foot facility brings together technical education in advanced manufacturing trades active in the Salt Lake Valley. The building features collaborative labs, classrooms, and shop spaces in areas such as composites, plastics, machining, welding, electronics, diesel technology and CDL truck driving. According to the architects, the goal was to create an adaptable education space that mimics real-world workforce environments.
“The design team sought to create a high-quality interior environment that emphasizes how people use the equipment, bringing in experts to identify the foundational criteria for each space to function safely,” says Ingrid Krueger, AIA, LEED AP, senior associate at SRG Partnership. “The space’s exposed structure and infrastructure create an authentic training experience that prepares students to enter careers in the workforce and make an immediate impact in the state’s growing STEM-based industries.”
”Internally, visual connections and overlooks between circulation and learning spaces create a unique relationship, allowing users to interact with each other and observe the work their peers are doing in their various fields,” says Krueger. “The program also includes spaces for collaboration with industry partners to provide opportunities for students to interface with leading industrial trade companies. The modular layout accommodates not only changes in the college’s programs but can easily be modified to respond to industry needs.”
Photo: Alan Blakely
Branding Opportunities
The building sits on a highly visible site just west of I-215, creating an opportunity to express the variety of dynamic activities held within, as well as the college’s values. Due to siting constraints with a fault line that runs diagonally through the site, and a high-pressure gas line, the architects designed a building with its primary axis running north-south.
At more than 600 feet long, the building’s elongated form created a design challenge. By breaking up the mass through form and materials that reflect the program, the architects were able to give the building a human scale that was more approachable, and a pedestrian-friendly environment for students and faculty. The machine-based, industrial-scaled shop spaces face the highway, while the pedestrian-scaled classroom, labs, administration areas and building entrances are on the quieter side of the site.
“The building is organized around a spine with all the high bay industrial spaces such as the machine shop, truck bay, and welding lab all on one side of the spine,” explains Krueger. “Classrooms, skills labs, study spaces and offices are all directly connected to the spine with half forming extrusions in the mass, and others overlooking the shop spaces below.”
Additionally, the building’s placement provided an opportunity for the school to do branding and advertising on the east facade facing the freeway, which draws attention and interest with the community for both potential students and industry partners.
Photo: Alan Blakely
Durable Materials
To create an environment that conveys quality and investment, while maintaining an industrial look, the architects paid strict attention to detail as well as the materials they chose for the project. “The interior emphasizes durable, low-maintenance regional and recycled materials throughout the building,” notes Krueger. “The facade is designed with a combination of insulated metal panel and glass that balances themes of industrialism and transparency.”
NorthClad, Everett, Wash., supplied its EF series curtainwall with 0.0125-inch plate aluminum and extruded continuous aluminum subgirts for drainage and support.
Photo: Alan Blakely
Healthy Learning Environment
The building’s interior features high ceilings, ample indoor-outdoor connections, natural daylight, and passive learning spaces where students and faculty can interact and socialize. According to Krueger, the building’s ability to open to the outside expresses a sense of welcoming, with the variation in solid and void relationships establishing a more approachable human scale, marking the public spaces and entries, creating a friendly environment for users with indoor/outdoor connections. “Classrooms, skills labs, and offices along the building’s west side feature extensive windows with ample visual connections to the outside that offer an escape to nature, bolstering students’ ability to concentrate.”
Envisioned as a healthy, vibrant learning environment for students and faculty to stimulate and encourage learning, the building includes natural light as a critical element in creating both a safe and invigorating interior environment by penetrating deep inside the building through continuous north-facing clerestory windows and 28 prismatic skylights.
The indoor air quality management plan achieves the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ Association (SMACNA) requirements. “Due to the industrial nature of the machine shops and programs, the project required use of filtration media and protection of ducts during construction,” explains Krueger. “The design of the facility separates dust-generating activities from clean activities with appropriate collection and filtration systems. In addition, the project focused on ergonomics and proper spacing between equipment and work zones to keep training areas safe and clean.”
Water conservation strategies were implemented including stormwater being collected on-site through an expansive underground piped water retention system. Indoor potable water consumption is 42% less than a code-compliant building, and the landscape design uses low-water-use plants and efficient irrigation technologies that use cloud technology to help reduce water usage by 30% from traditionally designed systems.
Additionally, the school has a 3,520-panel, roof-mounted solar array that aids in its pursuit of net-zero electricity usage, and is documenting a 70.5% energy cost improvement, compared to the applicable ASHRAE 90.1-2010 baseline.