Architecture

INNovative Approach

The Summit Technology Academy of the Missouri Innovation Campus, designed by Gould Evans and DLR Group, is an innovative educational model that recognizes the role of design in preparing students for the workplace environment.
22 August, 2018
This program was developed together with the University of Central Missouri, Lee's Summit School District, local industry participants, and Gould Evans' education design leadership to create a new type of academic campus.
The campus was built in a specific way that allows learning and teaching to happen everywhere. All the spaces were designed to become suitable for all disciplines and programs. Just as in every campus there ar labs and classrooms dedicated for specific programs. However, at the same time they can be easily be adjusted for a changing curriculum. Gould Evans on is official website claims that this campus translates design trends from the contemporary workplace, supporting flipped classroom instructional models in a team-based, self-directed learning setting. It is difficult to define where spaces for lecture or lab end and meeting, work and community areas begin. Students are free to choose any place where it is comfortable for them to study. All eight departments are clustered around a shared "campus commons" – an internal hub where students intermingle.
However, not only the inner design is unique. The façade is definitely worth mentioning. There are three primary systems on the facade. The majority of the building is clad with a custom-fabricated metal panel rainscreen across the second and third levels and a curtain wall glazing system between the metal panels. In an interview, Sean Zaudke, associate principal at Gould Evans and member of the design team, told AN, "We wanted the facade system to be something that was innovative and simple; something that was very specific to the project."

The metal panel is made of standard anodized aluminum coil stock, which is light and easily transformable and that is why was bent diagonally at two locations on each panel. There is only one panel type, which is rotated and mirrored across the building envelope to create an effect of a snail's skin that responds to light in different ways. Each panel is ten feet long and two feet wide with a return at the edge so they lock into each other. The dimensions of the aluminum coil stock govern the height of the skin, so the metal facade is twenty-feet in elevation. The metal is a rain-screen system attached to a continuous insulation barrier with a horizontal girt system.
At the top of the building, aluminum panels are met with custom bent closure panels. So in the back these panels are safely locked while the profile maintain that beautiful skin effect. A simpler flat closure panel meets the bottom of the rain-screen system. Additionally, its returns show a perfect combination of the bent edge complexity and the straightness of the glass curtain wall.
The main purpose of the design was to make each part of the building flexible and adjustable to programmatic changes. The design of the curtain wall is not an exception. Gould Evans made every piece of it the same two-panel module, which can be added, removed, or relocated. The system can be adapted as the needs of the educational program evolve.
Banner image: Facades+