Colorado School of Mines, CoorsTek Center for Applied Science and Engineering
Golden, Colorado
A milestone in the multigenerational partnership between Mines, the Coors family, and CoorsTek, a leader in technical ceramics manufacturing, CoorsTek Center fosters connections between students, faculty, researchers, and industry professionals.
“BCJ and AMD worked in collaboration with the Mines community, students, staff and faculty to create a facility that was state-of-the-art from all aspects: from pedagogy to scientific laboratories. The end result is a facility where great interactions occur, and the environment is at once inviting and inspiring.
Project Information
SIZE
95,000 SF
COMPLETED
2018
AWARDS
AIA Colorado Award of Distinction
PRESS
A Collage on Campus: CoorsTek Center by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
The four-story CoorsTek Center, located at the heart of campus, provides a home for the College of Applied Science and Engineering (CASE) and Department of Physics. The project supports collaborative partnerships among the college’s three other departments and two interdisciplinary programs: the Department of Chemistry and Geochemistry, the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, the Materials Science Program, and the Nuclear Science and Engineering Program.
While the Center is designed to accommodate CASE, the campus-wide need for classroom space provided an opportunity to create spaces that would serve students and faculty from all disciplines. Flexible, media-intensive ‘Active Learning’ rooms can be rearranged for group work and discussion as curriculum dictates. Outside the classrooms on Level 1, a lively promenade with panoramic views of the campus green incorporates seating and collaborative work areas of varied types and scales, offering opportunities for both planned and informal encounters. These spaces emulate tech workplaces to create an open, dynamic environment that will prepare students for post-college work life.
The design employs massing and materiality to connect to the site’s historic context and ever-present Front Range landscape. Its metal and glass façade is vertically punctuated by service cores clad in dark masonry. Floating horizontal masonry panels made of the signature pale brick used extensively throughout campus add visual interest and introduce a forward-looking aesthetic. The northwest exterior, facing onto the popular campus green, Kafadar Commons, consists of full-height windows on Level 1, and vertical glass panels and metal fins at Levels 2 and 3 that float above and modulate as influenced by the building’s interior program.
Made possible with a $27 million gift from CoorsTek and the Coors family, the CoorsTek Center celebrates Mines’ institutional needs and vibrant campus setting and serves as a focal point for the CoorsTek-Mines research partnership.
