Architecturally unique projects like the San Jose High School Career Technology Engineering Building only come together when everyone involved is on the same page. Morin, A Kingspan Group Company, helped make it work for the architectural and construction teams.
“This is the project that actually pushed our company in the direction of taking on more challenging projects,” said Louie Rua, president of Rua and Son Mechanical. “We specialize in these types of projects now. I like the challenging projects.”
The new 13,000 square foot Career Technology Engineering Building showcases an open, industrial character that encourages exploration, collaboration and risk taking. The building’s organization is dominated by a three-story cylindrical exhibition lobby with a sloped octagon-shaped roof. That lobby connects the five classrooms and an engineering lab on two levels. It also opens through a series of doors to a small courtyard, allowing exhibitions and activities to flow outdoors. San Jose High School’s CTE Building was constructed to implement the curriculum of Project Lead the Way.
“It was a fun project,” says Julio Lucas, AIA, who at the time of design was with Artik Art & Architecture of San Jose. “A big part of the inspiration came from the building being a career technology facility, it’s a learning tool and that was the inspiration.”
Lucas said a nearby historic building, originally the San Jose Steel plant, helped him decide on using metal for the San Jose High School CTE Building. “Metal helps us break away from what many designers have become so comfortable with, the stucco or concrete buildings,” he says. “The exposed fasteners were by choice and not an economical decision. We wanted to expose how the building was put together, not hide the fasteners.”
Rua and Son installed a variety of product from MORIN, including wall and roofing panels, while fabricating flat stock for use as soffits, gutters, downspouts and various trim work. MORIN supplied 11,500 square feet of its Y-36 22-gauge Galvalume corrugated panels in Champagne Bronze and 9,500 square feet of SLR-18 22-gauge Galvalume roofing panels in Seafoam Green Mica. For 22-gauge flat stock material, MORIN delivered 2,420 square feet of Champagne Bronze and 3,830 square feet of Seafoam Green Mica. The project also required 2,400 square feet of MORIN’s F-12 22-gauge Galvalume panel in Seafoam Green Mica.
“Katia (Griggs, MORIN’s west coast representative) was instrumental in pulling this project together,” Rua says. “She got us what we needed when we needed it.
“This project was a challenge bringing the four different components together,” Rua said. “The soffits, the corrugated panels, the roofing and the (brick red) Dri-Design panels … it was a real outside-the-box project.”
Rua said the key was being able to work hand-in-hand with architect Julia Lucas during the three months the teams were at the jobsite.