Sam Houston State University, Fred Pirkle Engineering Technology Center

Huntsville, Texas

Firm

Lawrence Group

Client

Sam Houston State University

Area

54,540 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$16,600,000

Completion Date

09/2016

Associated Firms: BSA Lifestructures (Lab Specialist), Jose I. Guerra (MEP/FP Engineering), Structures + Haynes Whaley (Structural Engineering), Walter P Moore (Civil Engineering), DataCom Design Group (AV-IT/Acoustics/Security), TBG Partners (Landscape Architecture), Four Point Lighting Design (Lighting Consultant), Halford Busby (Cost Estimating)

This innovative learning center was intended to honor university alumnus Fred Pirkle and serve as a gateway to the Huntsville campus. The program called for four levels of academic and lab space; levels one and two are dedicated to industrial engineering, level three houses agricultural sciences, and level four is administration.
Massing of the exterior façade reflects the separation of the two disciplines with a two-story masonry and curtain wall base and a two-story-deep fluted metal panel and ribbon window cap. With a 20-foot grade across the site, Level 1 is half-buried into the hillside, and a terraced teaching amphitheater along the north facade camouflages the otherwise steep slope.
The interior focal point is a two-story, collaboration innovation lab with observation points from the second-level entry lobby, corridor and Fred Pirkle museum. An abstract art element hangs over the collaboration lab and eventually reveals itself as an inventor’s “eureka moment,” when viewed from the museum observation point.