Building Community and Educational Projects With Glulam
Glulam beams offer unique design capabilities. Their flexible structure enables them to form complex curves or be built in complex shapes difficult to accomplish using other materials, and they can be stained, painted or left natural depending on the design requirements for any given project.
Selecting appropriate glulam posts, columns and beams is essential to creating impressive architectural designs. Gaining a deeper understanding of their specific roles will allow builders and engineers to maximize strength and stability of these structural components.
Parmer Pond District
At the heart of Texas’ expanding tech industry park is a new campus for an Austin-based private education company. Surrounded by large corporate campuses of Amazon, Polycom, eBay and Oracle as well as hundreds of heritage oak trees and native flora on an idyllic park-like setting is this private education school campus.
Mark Odom Studio designed this building to take advantage of the site’s topography by featuring trails that wind around an 11-acre pond, giving tenants of this new business/technology campus, soccer fans and community members ample opportunity to come for lunch, watch Austin FC Academy games or attend concerts before relaxing by the water’s edge.
A glulam pavilion is an integral element of our facility’s dining and entertainment spaces, designed to highlight the iconic architecture of Parmer Pond District. Boasting three 3″ laminated Glulam beams that span its width, as well as structural steel support and Lock-Deck decking roofing assembly trusses, its purpose is to establish a strong link between indoor and outdoor spaces within our facility.
Sienna Ranch Solution Center in Missouri City, Texas showcases the versatility of Glulam. This retail center includes numerous distinct Glulam structures – double arch Glulam beams in particular — align with their church’s mission to educate and develop students to become leaders within their community. R.M. Rodgers supplied components that were bolted together on site using precut lengths delivered via prefabricated kits from them.
La Salle Sisters of Cypress
The La Salle Sisters of Cypress community in Cypress, TX provides services and programs that cater to an eclectic clientele. Their mission is to uphold Saint John Baptist de La Salle’s spirit and charism by creating an inviting atmosphere and making sure all feel welcome, regardless of religious belief or experience. Their Sisters strive to foster an ethos of community by offering programs and services designed to meet varying individual needs.
Following Nicolas Roland’s death, de La Salle received an inheritance that gave him enough funds to begin exploring how best to teach children. In 1678 he met Adrien Nyel who shared his interest in working with poorer communities – together they began opening schools and other institutions dedicated to education.
Glulam is an integral part of educational projects, from student centers and classroom buildings to universities, community colleges, and public grade schools. As it’s suitable for many different learning environments it provides an ideal solution.
Design by architecture firm BIG, this groundbreaking project features two interconnecting structures that come together seamlessly. Support for this building comes from custom-fabricated glulam beams secured to structural steel members; each beam member features non-repeating patterns made up of different timber species for a visually striking finish. In addition, BIG utilized innovative connections between beams and wall system using traditional framing methods as well as systems-integrated CLT panels.
The Pitch
The Pitch is our inaugural commercial structure in our Parmer Pond District and features an eye-catching glulam roof deck that captures its architectural character. Constructed using multiple glulam beams bolted together and supported by Lock-Deck decking, its curve allowed our designers to maintain sloped fenestration key to the project’s design intent while still achieving desired slopes and angles in its sloped roof design.
As an experiment facility, this facility houses one of the world’s longest running and renowned experiments — The Pitch Drop — that illustrates the viscosity and fluidity of pitch (a byproduct of tar). While at room temperature pitch may feel solid or even brittle, when chilled it transforms into one of the world’s thickest known fluids that is only broken by dropping a metal ball onto an experimental container. Since 1927 this experiment has been running continuously.
Una-Lam glulam has been used in a wide range of educational projects, including student centers, libraries, classroom buildings and entrances. Notable examples include the Quinnipiac University Student Center in Hamden CT; Hudson Valley Community College’s TEC Smart facility in Malta NY and Northeast Academy Elementary School’s Groton entrance – these projects highlight its wide range of applications that can be realized using Una-Lam. Reach out today and discover how Una-Lam can enhance your next educational project!
De La Salle Educational Center
De La Salle is the educational branch of Christian Brothers, an order dedicated to providing quality education for young men from grades 5-8. La Salle emphasizes individual attention, holistic development and social responsibility through innovative teaching methods and hands-on experiential learning; thus transforming students into ethical leaders who serve with compassion and justice within their communities and beyond.
John Baptist de La Salle took care in taking over after Nicolas Roland passed, overseeing an orphanage for girls run by sisters. In 1678 he met Adrien Nyel a layman interested in creating schools which provided free education to poor communities; together they established two primary schools and then a school specifically tailored for boys.
Over the next century, de La Salle played a pivotal role in founding schools across France and then globally; his legacy lives on today in the Lasallian educational tradition.
De La Salle High School of Freeport, New York was honored with a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence award from the U.S. Department of Education for outstanding academic performance and community involvement. This accolade recognizes schools that demonstrate significant progress toward improving student academic achievement and graduation rates while still offering balanced, rigorous curricula.
De La Salle Educational Center strives to offer young men an exceptional, faith-based education that equips them to become compassionate leaders and lifelong learners. Built upon Saint John Baptist de La Salle’s tradition of education, its curriculum emphasizes individual attention, holistic development, social leadership development and leadership training. Furthermore, De La Salle provides various academic and enrichment programs – International Baccalaureate (IB), Advanced Placement (AP) courses as well as Dual Enrollment – all tailored specifically towards young men’s development.
In 2013, DLS collaborated with WeDesignNY on an extensive renovation of a six-story church-owned building. The renovation required major structural modifications, modernizations and safety enhancements in order to prepare it for use by 2014’s class of new students. WeDesignNY worked closely with DLS team to bring their vision for space alive – producing stunning results featuring elegant double arches in the church.