TUCSON, Ariz.—Los Angeles-based CO Architects recently won a 2020 American Architecture Award for its work on the $128 million University of Arizona Health Sciences Innovation Building (HSIB) in Tucson.

The honor was presented in the Schools and Universities category by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

“This American Architecture Award is a tribute to our team’s insightful work on the University of Arizona HSIB,” said Scott Kelsey, FAIA, managing principal at CO Architects. “Our architects creatively unified the new multi‐purpose building with its environment, echoing our mission to elevate communities with benchmark design.”

Completed in 2019, the 230,000‐square‐foot HSIB is a multidisciplinary medical and health‐sciences education facility that supports the university’s Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health, as well as the Arizona Simulation Technology and Education Center. Kitchell was the general contractor on this impressive project.

To connect the HSIB to the campus’ existing masonry brick aesthetic, CO Architects selected terracotta, a material that could be extruded and manipulated. Visually appealing, the terracotta is hung on the façade’s curtainwall system, improving the building’s energy performance.

Facility highlights include the first‐floor, multi‐story “forum,” a flexible event space that serves the building’s departments, the university populace, and the outside community. The room opens to the campus through three glass hangar doors, expanding the space and supporting events from 50 to 1,000 guests. Social/study terraces are carved into the building to provide shaded outdoor access to nature and extensive views.

On the seventh floor, a black box theater‐inspired “Simulation Deck” creates immersive simulation environments that mimic realistic, multi‐sensory experiences supplemented by a viewing gallery.

The University of Arizona HSIB project is CO Architects’ eighth American Architecture Award, dating back to 2013. The 2020 award winners were selected from more than 400 entries.

The post University of Arizona Sciences Building Wins Design Award appeared first on School Construction News.

FOLSOM, Calif.—A new Kindergarten through fifth grade school in Folsom, Calif.—which is approximately 25 miles east of Sacramento— will serve more than 650 students when the new campus opens for the 2021-2022 school year.

Mangini Ranch Elementary School will be located in the brand-new Folsom Ranch neighborhood. Community leaders and parents are especially happy about this project being the first new school for the Folsom Ranch development, as well as the first new school built in Folsom in more than 10 years.

Kitchell CEM—which has locations across California and in Arizona— is the general contractor on this $50 million school that will feature innovative technology and additional resource space beyond the classrooms to promote collaboration and connections. A groundbreaking ceremony for this project was held in February.

Sacramento-based Rainforth Grau Architects (RGA) is the architect on this new school. The firm started working on preliminary programming with the District in 2015.

“The school was designed as a two-story single building after significant research was done with the District on trends in curriculum, collaboration and safety,” said RGA Principal Architect Teri Jamison.

“The design focuses on connectivity, collaboration and community, which includes pull-out collaboration spaces, a central commons area for large gatherings and clusters of classrooms for each grade level promoting community.”

There is increased transparency of the spaces to promote connection and supervision throughout the building.

“An access control system is being provided with integration to intrusion and video surveillance systems to streamline security and safety features of the facility,” she explained.  “All instructional and gathering spaces are technologically robust with touchscreen monitors, speakers for amplification and individual student devices.

Jamison said the biggest design challenge was the journey to arrive at the solution being constructed.

“The change from a campus-style organization to a multi-story single building is a cultural shift for the school district and there was an increased effort expended early on in weighing all the options, concerns and opportunities in pursing this change in methodology.”

Mangini Ranch Elementary School is the first of five new elementary schools planned to be built for the Folsom Ranch area.

The post First New Elementary School for California City in a Decade appeared first on School Construction News.