Widely known for designing many of Apple's iconic retail stores, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson teamed up with Denver-based Anderson Mason Dale Architects to design the CoorsTek Center for Applied Science and Engineering, a new 95,000 square-foot education and research facility that just opened at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado.
The $50 million four-story campus building houses the College of Applied Science and Engineering and Department of Physics, and will support partnerships among the college's three other departments and two interdisciplinary science programs. The new building also marks a milestone in a multi-generational partnership between Mines, the Coors family, and CoorsTek, a leading technical ceramics manufacturer.
The Center's design draws from the site's historic context and the surrounding Front Range landscape. Its metal and glass facade is vertically punctuated by service cores clad in dark masonry, while floating horizontal masonry panels made of the signature pale brick found through campus creates visual interest, BCJ says. “The northwest exterior, which fronts the popular campus green known as Kafadar Commons, consists of full-height glazing at Level 1, and vertical glass panels and metal fins at Levels 2 and 3.”
Inspired by today's tech workplaces, the CoorsTek Center provides students with flexible, media-intensive “active learning” rooms that can be rearranged for group work and discussion, as well as an outdoor promenade that offers seating and collaborative work areas and panoramic views of the campus. Level 1 of the building is open to the entire campus, while Levels 2 and 3 are dedicated to teaching and research labs and faculty and graduate student offices. Below grade are additional lab spaces with specific lighting, sound, and vibration requirements.
Project credits
Design Architect: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Principal: Peter Bohlin, FAIA
Principal: Robert Miller, FAIA
Project Manager: Kirk Hostetter, AIA
Team Member: Natalie Gentile, AIA
Team Member: Nate Lambdin, RA
Team Member: Kevin Lang, RA
Team Member: Michael Waltner, RA
Architect of Record: Anderson Mason Dale Architects
Consultants
General Contractor: FCI Constructors
Landscape Designer: Lime Green Design
Mechanical Engineer: Shaffer Baucom Engineering & Consulting Structural Engineer: Martin Martin Consulting Engineers
1 Comment
just the kind of beautiful, lean American design that the pop media never covers.
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