STEM, Arts, and Robotics Classroom Building
On the Woodside Priory School campus, the Laurel STREAM Center provides students with facilities for hands-on instruction in science, technology, robotics, engineering, arts, and mathematics.
Targeted to achieve net zero energy consumption (and measured as net positive in the first full year of operation) the building has an efficient envelope and a large south facing roof slope to shield windows and optimize a 60 kW photovoltaic array. Low-E high-performance glazing, and an energy efficient VRF mechanical system, complimented by energy recovery ventilation (ERV) technologies, and generous natural ventilation lower the building’s energy demand. The two story footprint minimizes site disturbance and impervious surfaces, while landscaping features manzanita, live oak and other drought-tolerant, native plants.
In addition to laboratory classrooms, the STREAM Center houses several studios and workshops. Glass overhead doors in two ground floor studios open to a shared outdoor work area known as The Maker Court. This multidisciplinary, multifunctional space lends itself to technical robotics experiments in counterpoint to the surrounding natural environment. On the building’s east elevation a large barn door connects a painting and drawing studio, to a small garden, while a sheltered circulation path stretches along the structures’s south face, offering students and faculty expansive views of the surrounding wooded hills.
While much of the STREAM Center is clad in cedar siding— a nod to the local agrarian vernacular— the circulation areas and Maker Court feature exposed structural steel elements and cementitious panels, lending an industrial quality to building’s the fabrication wing.