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Four decades into educating college students on its Fort Worth, Texas campus, an intense windstorm damaged Tarrant County College’s Northwest branch in 2016.
Though challenging at the time, the weather event ended up serving as the catalyst the campus needed to move beyond its dated 1970s concrete brutalist architectural style.
Embarking upon a large campus development program, the architect of record, Gensler, with assistance from Huckabee, chose metal, brick and glass for two new buildings to present a modern, sculpted and high-tech façade.
The new buildings in this first phase of the college’s revitalization efforts house a cafeteria, multipurpose spaces, flex classrooms and spaces for administrative functions.
Featuring modern lines and a variety of three-dimensional façade elements, the architects were seeking one metal façade manufacturer capable of providing all the components needed to realize their multi-faceted design. Between the two buildings, this included flat and 3D-shaped rainscreen panels, projecting fins, soffit panels and perforated wall features.
Metalwërks fit the bill, enabling Gensler to source all the architectural metal with one company.
For building one, a sawtooth façade was designed as a wedge-shaped faceting pattern, highlighting the multicolored surfaces of the wall panels and creating shading patterns. Arcwall /Sculpted rain screen wall panels in a horizontal orientation were produced in two sizes of offsetting biased faces and a third panel type is flat. Each panel type engages in a similar male female nterlocking joint with the panels above and below.
In all, 14,000 sq. ft. of metal panels were produced in five colors: Platinum, Martin Medium Bronze, Summerday, Buckram Binding and Market White by Shewrin Williams. In addition, 1,500 sq. ft. of bright yellow soffit panels clad the building’s main entrance openings.
The second building incorporates projecting fin assemblies with multicolored flat panels and surface-applied fins which create shadows and breaks in large, flat walls. 13,000 sq. ft. of flat Arcwall wall panels were produced in White Platinum, Martin Medium Bronze, SummerDay, Yellow Lotus and, Martin White Ivoire. In addition, 2,400 sq. ft. of bright yellow soffit panels were designed for the main entrance openings. The façade also features a folded aluminum fin shape with attachment brackets back to the building substrate.
The architects selected a highly customized color palette inspired by the surrounding Texas landscape. Because high-pigmented yellows and blues required special attention, Metalwërks used multilayered finishes and several applications around cladding paint lines to produce high quality paint in the desired colors. The fluoropolymer coatings are also warrantied.
Building one mimics “Sediment and Erosion” colors of orange and earthly greys and building two picks op on the “Morning Sky,” which is a blend of vibrant yellows and cool greys.
The aluminum panels incorporate drained, back-ventilated waterproofing elements and factory-formed returns and corners, producing a crisp, finished look.
In addition to manufacturing the systems, Metalwërks provided project management and design collaboration, as well as design engineering specific to the climate and to help the project meet local building codes.
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