Marquez Hall at Colorado School of Mines / Bohlin Cywinski Jackson + Anderson Mason Dale Architects

Architects: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Anderson Mason Dale Architects
Location: Golden, CO, United States
Architect Of Record: Anderson Mason Dale Architects
Design Architect : Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Area: 87000.0 ft2
Project Year: 2012
Photographs: Nic Lehoux

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson Team: Peter Bohlin FAIA, Principal Robert Miller FAIA, Principal Kirk Hostetter AIA, Project Manager David Miller AIA, Christian Kittelson AIA, Nate Lambdin, Matt Wittman AIA, Natalie Gentile, Patty Culley
Anderson Mason Dale Team: Paul Haack, AIA, Principal in Charge David Houston, AIA, Project Manager
General Contractor: Adolfson and Peterson Construction
Architectural Graphic Design: WPA, Inc.
Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing: Shaffer Baucom Engineering & Consulting
Civil Engineering: Martin/Martin Engineering
Structural Engineering: Studio NYL
Energy Consultant: Architectural Energy Corporation
Landscape: studioINSITE
Acoustical Consulting: D.L. Adams Associates, Inc.

Text description provided by the architects. Marquez Hall, the home of the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, is designed to reflect the changing role of energy from petroleum to renewables. The 87,000-square-foot facility accommodates the growing needs of the distinguished engineering program while creating a gateway to a new Earth Science Quad.

Forming an edge of a pedestrian walkway that connects two main quadrangles, the siting enhances the extraordinary views of the surrounding mountains. The L-shaped plan defines a new courtyard activated with custom designed seating to encourage interaction.

The floor plan is comprised of three bars of program. The northern bar houses a combination of graduate and undergraduate laboratories, a 4-D visualization classroom, and a drilling simulator room. The southern bar holds offices and support spaces to enhance interaction between students, faculty, and research teams. The southeastern wing provides a lecture hall and four levels of smart classrooms and seminar rooms.

The transparent exhibition space and entrance lobby are positioned along Cheyenne Way, a prominent campus thoroughfare. Structurally glazed glass walls hang from the 60-foot cantilevered roof. A series of layers—constructed of glass curtain wall, aluminum plate, and terra cotta cladding—express the program. Metal louvers shade the interior spaces, allowing views of the distant buttes from classroom and laboratory spaces.

Marquez Hall reinforces Colorado School of Mine’s vision for the future by looking to the user, to the campus, and to the community to achieve an architectural vocabulary that reflects the school’s innovative research and programs.