Prairie View A&M University

OPEN GALLERY

Highlights

• Site – 1 acre; Building – 25,000 sq ft
• The new center is a display of making.
• Located on the southeast side of campus, the center is an extension of the existing School of Architecture.
• The center is conceived as an elevated plane that references the prairie.”
• This innovative maker space houses a variety of equipment, allowing architectural students to build, develop, and test new ideas.
• The building creates summer and winter courts where students can work outside.
• The materials blend nicely with the school and other campus structures, picking up on the masonry of several adjacent buildings.
• The entrance is a natural transition from shaded outdoor spaces of the school to the canopies of the front doors.
• The center looks as if it were part of the overall design of this section of campus.

Perspectives

The Fabrication Center replaces an 1800-square-foot model shop in the Architecture building. Since construction of the Architecture building, the school added digital and manual equipment which made it very crowded for student use. The intent of the project was for the process of modeling and construction to be done in one location, offering opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, collaboration, and cross-disciplinary interaction. The design goal was to create a complementary building that plays off of the original design without copying it.

This building was originally a graduate student’s project that was developed and then turned into a grant. This student’s vision, with the support of the School of Architecture, became a reality, enhancing the education of future students. The construction of the building itself was intended to be a learning lab for both teachers and students. Extra care was taken with project details to educate the users in a passive kind of way.

The building program is composed of several different types of maker spaces that, instead of being individual spaces, have a communal assembly area where students can use a variety of equipment on one project.

 The Fabrication Center offers students a chance to design and build, often in miniature, their future projects, their future world.”

Dr. Iklhas Sabouni, ACSADP, Dean, Prairie View A&M University School of Architecture

Project Team

Kirksey Architecture; also Walter P Moore; E&C Engineers & Consultants Inc.; Clark Condon; SpawGlass