1. Pasadena ISD to Open New Career and Technology High School: The Pasadena Independent School District broke ground in April on the 246,000-square-foot Career and Technology High School (CTE) scheduled to open in August 2014. The school will be equipped with facilities to prepare students for 21st century careers — from cosmetology to construction — while earning them college credits with focus on the community’s job market.

2. Yale Attracts Researchers with New Innovative Labs: Yale University opened the new W-B 24 scientific research facility at the university’s growing West Campus Integrated Science & Technology Center (W-ISTC). The 460,000 square feet of laboratory space has been designed so that the individual labs can support a variety of biology and engineering studies and include features such as microscopy suites, DNA sequencers and cell culture, which will likely draw new researchers and their practices.

3. New Business School Underway at University of Florida: The University of Florida broke ground on Heavener Hall, a new 21st century business school for the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business Administration. The 56,200-square-foot building will give the undergraduate business program one dedicated location for undergraduate students to learn. The current business program is spread out among several other buildings.

4. Construction Continues on UConn’s New Basketball Arena: A new basketball court is in the works at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. The two-floor, 78,200-square-foot court will feature a new basketball Hall of Fame, which will include three men’s and eight women’s NCAA championship trophies.

5. Salt Lake Community College Unveils Media Center: Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) debuted its new Center for Arts and Media (CAM) in early November at South City Campus. The new 130,000-square-foot center houses SLCC programs, such as journalism, television broadcast production, music technology, and recording and visual arts, for about 9,000 students.

While the school construction industry in 2013 continued to focus on creating 21st century learning environments, School Construction News predicts some other trends for 2014. Our January/February issue highlights new steps in sustainable design, as more and more net-zero energy facilities are being built. In fact, the Facilities of the Month cover story features the new Los Angeles Harbor College Sciences Complex, designed to achieve net-zero energy and to serve as a teaching tool for the college’s physical science and life science programs. Stay tuned for the most up-to-date stories in the coming year.

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“Pasadena ISD chose the careers that will be offered at the new CTE High School based on input from local businesses and labor market information. The goal is to offer an opportunity for our students to investigate careers that are available in our Gulf Coast area,” said Sarah Wrobleski, CTE Director. “This training will offer opportunities for industry certifications and real world training with employment opportunities.”

With the Houston Ship Channel providing many area jobs, the district emphasized the need for a maritime program and facility, said Stuart Campbell, AIA, project managaer at Bay-IBI Architects. A pond is located adjacent to the school so students in the program can gain job skills to make students competitive future applicants.

“They can set up boating lanes with radio control boats or they can drain it out and use it as a loading dock,” Campbell said.

A welding facility will also support the program, Campbell said.

Other CTHS programs include computer animation, finance, marketing, culinary arts, veterinary sciences, horticulture, medical, EMT dental, construction, daycare center, teacher training, cosmetology and legal studies program.

Among the schools many student focused amenities, students seeking a career in the medical field will be able to take advantage of the schools simulation rooms with four test dummies and hospital beds, while hopeful law professionals will be supported with the schools full courtroom. The culinary arts program is equipped with a full-service teaching kitchen.

The incorporation of such a wide variety of programs was made possible by a dedicated design team, Campbell said, which included a teachers and administrators from the career and technology programs. Led by what Campbell calls “vision books,” designers were able to include many features brought forth by CTE staff.

“We told them if they saw any picture any photo any layout that was something that they thought would improve the programs, to bring it in,” Campbell said. “We tried taking all of that and implementing it into the spaces.”

The flexible design of CTE will be constructed in such a way that will provide the culinary seminar rooms to open up into the school’s lobby. Combining with the opening of the conference center, separated into two rooms by a partition and wall that can open into the lobby, the full space can accommodate 500 people which can be served by the school’s culinary arts program, Campbell said.

“We’re trying to make it as flexible as possible because the only thing that is set in a career and technology school is that it changes,” Campbell said. “Size changes every year and programs change every year so we’ve tried to keep it as open as we could.”

The design, which features curtain wall glazing and LED lighting, aligned with many LEED criteria but did not seek LEED certification.

Dyad Construction is the general contractor for the project.

Designers were challenged with the requirement to build a school that didn’t appear as a school but more like a contemporary business facility, Campbell said. The modern professional design will provide students with an atmosphere to encourage young professionalism, Campbell said.

“We find out too that when you give the kids a facility that sets an environment that it is done to be a professional environment that they can buy into, grades go up testing go up and vandalism and [behavioral] problems basically decrease,” Campbell said.
 

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