Project Details
- Project Name
- The Lamplighter School Innovation Lab
- Architect
- Marlon Blackwell Architects
- Client/Owner
- The Lamplighter School
- Project Types
- Education
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Size
- 10,631 sq. feet
- Year Completed
- 2018
- Awards
- 2021 AIA Architecture Award
- Shared by
- Madeleine D'Angelo
- Project Status
- Built
An abridged version of the paragraph below appeared in the May/June 2021 issue of ARCHITECT as part of expanded coverage of the 2021 AIA Architecture Awards.
Designed by Marlon Blackwell Architects, the Lamplighter School Innovation Lab finds itself in rather a charged context on the northern Dallas campus of the Lamplighter School. Since 1969, the grounds and buildings—originally designed by modernist architect O’Neil Ford—have reflected Lamplighter’s commitment to a creative, playful model of education that emphasizes community, light, and landscape. With that sensibility in mind, Blackwell and his team conceived the design—which is part of a new multiphased master plan for the school—as a meditation on the idea of openness. Interior learning spaces are linked to one another with little in the way of separation between them. At each end of the T-shaped plan stand deep-set entryways, leading students to the great outdoors. The Innovation Lab, clad in copper and wood, is a compelling formal solution to a familiar typological challenge and an inspired new take on the Lamplighter School’s long-held principles.
Project Credits
Project: The Lamplighter School Innovation Lab, Dallas, Texas
Client: Joan Buchanan Hill, Ed. D – Head of School
Owner: The Lamplighter School
Architect of Record: Malron Blackwell Architects. Fayetteville, Ark. Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, Meryati Blackwell, AIA, Bradford Payne, AIA, Spencer Curtis, Assoc. AIA, Stephen Reyenga, Assoc. AIA, Cydney Jaggers, Assoc. AIA, Stephen Kesel, AIA, Kertis Weatherby, AIA, Jonathan Boelkins, AIA
M/E/P Engineer: Reed, Wells, Benson and Company
Structural Engineer: Raymond L. Goodson Jr. Inc
Landscape Design: Talley Associates Inc.
Lighting Design: Essential Light Design Studio
Accessibility: Access by Design Inc.
Code: SSTL Codes
General contractor: Hill & Wilkinson
Photographer: Timothy Hursley
Total construction cost: $3,724,984
Products and Materials
Exterior
Metal panels: site formed 16 oz copper wall & fascia panel
Metal/glass curtain wall: Tubelite series 14000
Wood: 4” tongue & groove cypress
EIFS, ACM, or other: None
Moisture barrier: VaproShield breathable membrane
Curtain wall: Tubelite series 200
Roofing Metal: site formed 16 oz copper standing seam roof system, 16” exposure
Glazing Glass: Viracon VNE24-63
Skylights: Bristolite skypro series with Solarban 60 tempered glass
Doors Entrances: Tubelite narrow stile aluminum storefront doors
Wood doors: Cypress laminated solid core wood door
All Glass doors: ¾” clear tempered glass
Special doors: Plastic laminate veneered solid core wood door
Hardware Locksets: Corbin Russwin & Adams Rite
Closers: Corbin Russwin
Exit devices: Rockwood
Pulls: Rockwood
Security devices: Securitron
Other special hardware: McKinney hinges
Interior Finishes Suspension grid: USG suspension system with 4” cypress plank
Demountable partitions: None
Cabinetwork and custom woodwork: Formica colorcore & Nevamar textured plastic laminated cabinets with corian solid surface tops
Paints and stains: Sherwin Williams Epoxy Interior Paint, Benjamin Moore Arborcoat Sealer for wood soffits and ceilings
Plastic laminate: Formica & Nevamar
Solid surfacing: Corian
Floor and wall tile: American olean wall tile – urban canvas
Carpet: Interface Harmonize
Concrete flooring: Polished concrete
Special interior finishes unique to this project: 4” undulating poplar wall planks
Furnishings Chairs: VS America
Tables: VS America
Other furniture: Palisade designed by Landscape Form
Lighting Downlights: Fluxwerx Pendenant, Lucifer Lighting recessed led downlight, Finelite high performance wall led, Betacalco ring led pendant
Exterior: Lumenfacade inground lights, hossley inground lights
Dimming system or other lighting controls: Audacy gateway controls
Conveyance Accessibility provisions: TAS compliant
Plumbing: Elkay double bowl sink; Symmons kitchen faucet; ISE garbage disposal; American standard studio carre restroom sink; Sloan optima faucet; ProFlo trap covers; Toto water closet; Sloan flush valve; Toto urinal; Watts urinal carrier; Elkay barrier free hung water cooler; IPS corp metal ice maker box; KitchenAid dishwasher; KitchenAid automatic ice maker; KitchenAid double wall oven with even-heat true convection; KitchenAid French door refrigerator; KitchenAid electric induction cooktop
Energy Energy management or building automation system: Chilled water system with central plant and VAV units.
Photovoltaic system: None
Other unique products that contribute to sustainability: Locally sourced materials, local labor force, and sustainable construction methods
Project Description
This project won a 2021 AIA Architecture Award. From the firm's 2021 AIA Award Submission:
The Lamplighter School’s Innovation Lab, the conceptual and physical center of a master plan initiated in 2014, presents a new and distinct identity on the village-like campus in Dallas. O'Neil Ford originally designed the campus in the late 1960s, working closely with administrators to support their learning movement with open learning spaces and a deep connection to nature. The new architecture bolsters the school's innovative pedagogy and its focus on exploration and discovery while complementing other additions made in the 1980s and ’90s.
Since its founding in the mid-1950s, The Lamplighter School has shaped unique learning environments for students in pre-K through fourth grade. By encouraging students to take risks and make their own choices, the school hopes to create a new generation of forever learners keen on pursuing their passions.
The team was charged from the project's outset to deliver a hands-on learning laboratory to serve the school's 450 students. Extensive programming eventually revealed it to be a series of open spaces that support exploration rather than instruction. The Innovation Lab addresses Lamplighter’s desire to participate fully in the shifting focus of education while keeping its mission in mind. To that end, the school worked closely with the team to incorporate STEM principles into its existing collaborative learning environment.
Filled with light and deeply connected to the landscape, the Innovation Lab contains hands-on learning classrooms that include a woodshop, robotics lab, and teaching kitchen. As the focal point of the master plan, also developed by the design team, it clarifies the campus organization and imbues it with a vitality more in line with 21st-century learning.
The lab is wrapped in copper and features cypress wood planks both outside and in. Its overall material palette, both warm and refined, is at home among the original buildings. Its dynamic form defines the interior spaces, where the open environment compresses and expands under its shifting roof. Inside, the typical cellular classroom arrangement is eschewed in favor of an open landscape that encourages exploration. Its porous nature allows students to flow between indoor classrooms and outdoor learning opportunities rooted in the local ecology, presenting students with ample opportunities to consider new ideas and experiment.
Echoing the school's educational values and vision, the lab fosters the ideals of collaboration among the students who learn within it. The team is now working on phase two of the project, which involves reconfiguring the school's existing administrative and teaching spaces while connecting them more directly to the natural world.
Project Credits
Civil Engineer: Raymond L. Goodson Jr., Inc.
M/E/P Engineer: Reed, Wells, Benson, and Co.
Structural Engineer: Raymond L. Goodson Jr., Inc.
General Contractor: Hill + Wilkinson
Landscape Architect: Talley Associates
Lighting Design: Essential Light Design Studio
Accessibility: Access by Design
Code: SSTL Codes
