York Technical College Comporium Center

Project Details

Project Description

Following completion of its comprehensive master plan, a technical college chose to start with a small, affordable, yet high-profile project. The oldest building on campus, at the busiest entry, was a dreary, windowless remnant of fifty-year-old pedagogy. Tasked with expanding its badly outmoded, yet much-needed, classrooms, while addressing façade structural deficiencies, the architects took the opportunity to display the new spaces behind an expansive curtainwall, against a backdrop of vibrant color, transforming visitors’ first impressions of campus. While small, the addition attempts to exist harmoniously with the larger existing building, through integration of matching brick patterns, roof material and geometry.

In anticipation of its fiftieth anniversary, York Technical College’s new president embarked on the school’s first comprehensive master plan. During phasing, the college identified several small, high-profile projects they believed would stir enthusiasm and garner community support for the larger, more ambitious projects to come. First on the list were rebranding, including campus-wide signage and graphics, and renovations to the front of “Building C”, the campus’s first and most prominently sited building.

After rebranding was complete, the architects who had collaborated on the master plan were again selected, this time for the renovation and addition to Building C. A sprawling, one-story, windowless classroom and office building, Building C had undergone minor interior renovations, but fundamentally remained a dreary remnant of outdated technical education pedagogy, setting the wrong tone at the campus entry. With limited funds available, the renovation of ten tiny, virtually unused classrooms along the front of the building was identified as the highest priority, providing an opportunity to also address minor foundation settlement while establishing a more appropriate image for the front of campus.

Realizing that this small addition could appear dwarfed by, and incompatible with, the existing building, the architects explored a number of strategies, attempting to weave new into old holistically. Two prominent existing features posed the greatest challenge. Bronze standing-seam metal roofs had been retrofitted onto all buildings in the 1980’s, becoming the major architectural feature on campus, referred to by some in the administration as the “witch’s hats.” Removing Building C’s roof was not feasible as part of the project, and would have to contended with. The only other feature on Building C was its dimple-patterned blonde brick, which presented the only real opportunity to tie the addition into the existing building.

The solution was found by peeling back the original building envelope, then reconstructing it in a new configuration. Removing the existing hip and roof vent, and extending the main gable, the design team created a composition of folded planes, resulting in a prominent horizontal overhang, framing the new façade beneath. Tracking down the original 1955 brick manufacturer, the architects were able to match new masonry to old exactly. Recreating the original dimpled pattern, the designers partially removed, reconstructed, then extended, the masonry façade at the addition, feathering in the new brick. Carefully tying the new extended roof and masonry side walls into the existing building resulted in a composition in which the original building appears to unfold and open, to frame and reveal a monumental, glazed entry façade.

Because the new façade faces southwest, however, reducing solar gain and shading the glass were critically important and challenging – a challenge the architects approached as an additional design opportunity. As a foil to the façade’s strict symmetry, a straightforward reflection of the function within, the architects deployed a randomized pattern of ceramic frit on the glass and an asymmetrical horizontal aluminum sun shade system, to subtly sabotage the otherwise staid composition.

Arranged in a pattern inspired by Piet Mondrian, lighter areas of ceramic frit randomly allow more transparent views, revealing bright accent colors intended to reflect the college’s new branding. Horizontal shades are composed of aluminum tubes and sheets of differing perforations, to create an A-A-B-C pattern, repeated six times across the façade, independently of the frit pattern on the glass. While subtle, these devices, together, create a surprising choreography along the façade, from both inside and outside the building, as people and objects come fleetingly into sharper view, and patterns from the sunshades mingle with the frit patterns to create random shadows that abruptly change with the arc of the sun.

Inside, classrooms are designed for flexibility. A simple, regularized plan accommodates generic classrooms that are easily used by a variety of instructors. Teaching walls take advantage of high ceilings, stacking projection surfaces above marker boards, providing maximum viewing angles and expansive writable surfaces that can be used simultaneously. A folding partition also allows two of the spaces to be combined, and moveable furniture maximizes teaching options. In contrast to the excessively monochromatic palette of other buildings on campus, vivid accent colors provide each classroom with a unique identity, in contrast to the otherwise uniform plan. The intended result is to put contemporary technical education on vibrant display, at the front of campus, in celebration of York Technical College’s fiftieth anniversary.