Design & Engineering for a Growing College Campus

KAI was engaged by the Dallas County Community College District to design and engineer a new adaptable, multi-functional Early College Center in the core of Cedar Valley’s campus. The design posed several programming and planning challenges and creative opportunities to the design team. Along with the core educational function of the Center, it also serves the larger goal of providing a location and environment for campus and community engagement. The result is an innovative and flexible building that can serve the students and public simultaneously in diverse programs and functions.

The Center serves a number of valuable functions for Dallas College, including:

• Technically-advanced classrooms and interactive spaces deliver an exciting learning environment for highly motivated high school students to earn college credits for college-level classes they take while attending high school.
• The highly adaptable 6,300 SF multi-purpose meeting space with subdividers accommodates hundreds of participants for educational opportunities, multi-media seminars with breakout rooms, large presentation and lecture programs, and reception/banquet events.
• The large Commons Area offers daily seating for dining and is quickly reconfigurable into multiple learning stations for student or community events.
• Contiguous outdoor spaces create outdoor classrooms for learning and social interaction for students, faculty, and the community.

Other spaces include a student activities suite with flexible open office space for student organizations, a Digital Commons, small group huddle spaces, large shaded patio off the Commons, and a grand staircase. KAI’s architects and MEP engineers collaborated on the large curtainwall feature of the exterior design. High-performance glazing and framing systems with strategically placed sun shading balance natural light and thermal performance. The building’s southern and west exposures are clad in brick masonry to connect the building scale to the existing campus buildings and provide thermal mass for the intense late-day sun.

Designing for Energy Efficiency

Architecture is a balance between design and engineering. One of the most beneficial qualities a building can provide is ample and appropriate natural light for the people within the architecture. Beyond the positive impacts on the quality of life for the occupants, it also reduces the need for artificial light and the energy demands required. The design team selected a high-performance insulating glass assembly with low emissivity coating, argon gas fill for improved insulation values, and a thermally improved glass spacer design. The design team then coupled the glass design with a thermally broken aluminum and polyamide curtain wall framing system to significantly reduce thermal bridging and provide “warm edge” technology to the glazing. This design approach significantly reduced conductive and radiating energy transfer through curtain wall and window wall assemblies to offer substantially lower assembly “U” values (higher “R” values) than provided by conventional glass assemblies. Coupled with the solar shading elements incorporated into the building design, the Center’s users can enjoy a learning environment filled with light while remaining energy efficient.

As part of the campus core, the two-story Center offers commanding views of Cedar Valley Lake and the main campus while providing convenient pedestrian, mass transit, district transportation and vehicular access. Designers utilized space between the Center and existing gymnasium to create a new landscaped plaza, linking the new building to the campus with an inviting park-like public space for entry and gathering space before events. The building’s central utility plant and services are located to the South to accommodate future expansion and a possible future Performing Arts Center.

Engineering with the Future in Mind

A unique engineering challenge on this project was designing a “micro-CUP” (central utility plant) that could not only meet current demands but also be expanded in the future to connect with a campus-wide chilled water system. To address this, KAI’s engineering team strategically designed the mechanical room and yard with additional space to accommodate future equipment. They also coordinated closely with the electrical team to ensure power panels and infrastructure were in place to support long-term growth, effectively anticipating the needs of an expanding campus.