School building is fun and inviting for students

by Jonathan McGaha | January 31, 2010 12:00 am

When moving from an attractive off-site location to the main campus, the
Beth Tfiloh Lower School in Baltimore wanted its new building to be fun and inviting for the students.

Dri-Design, Holland, Mich., supplied approximately 8,500 square feet (790 m2) of its 0.080-aluminum panels finished in three complementary colors-Colonial Red, Burgundy and Mansard Brown-installed in a checkerboard pattern to help achieve the desired effect.

“The challenge was that they had a pretty good looking facility at the off-campus location so we needed to make this new building as good or better,” said Michael Poness, AIA, design principal, WMCRP Architects, Landover, Md. “We wanted a high caliber of architectural design and function-so that led to looking at the materials pretty carefully.”

The Dri-Design panels interface with masonry known as “Jerusalem stone,” according to Poness. “The masonry at the front is meant to recall the kind of materials used throughout the Middle East and particularly Israel. All of the children at the school will travel to Israel at one time so the intent was to have the architecture reflect what they will see there.”

The random design pattern of the three Dri-Design colors was determined by working on large elevation drawings. H.H. Lewis Contractors, Owings Mills, Md., was the general contractor, and AWP Inc., Baltimore, installed the panels.

Dri-Design, www.dri-design.com

Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/projects/school-building-is-fun-and-inviting-for-students/

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