Kirksey Architecture completed the Anderson-Ball Classroom Building at San Jacinto College with the same rich wood throughout the campus in Pasadena, Texas.

The new San Jacinto College Anderson-Ball Classroom Building is the latest addition to the school’s Central Campus. As one of the nation’s largest mass timber buildings, it exhibits the mass timber structure throughout all public spaces and on its exterior façade. This building looks to educate not only in the classroom but also through educational plaques that highlight the buildings sustainable features.

Located at the previous site of the Anderson Tech and Ball Tech buildings, the classroom building reuses the existing foundation while attaching to the existing Davison building. During demolition, existing façade elements such as a Bas relief panel and marble panels from the two previous buildings were saved and installed in public spaces.

The building is comprised of two wings and a 2-story lobby and is prominently instructional spaces with some academic support and student gathering spaces. Instructional spaces consists of 56 classrooms, a robotics lab and a lecture hall. Student gathering spaces are formal, such as the enclosed student study space and huddle rooms, and informal, as open collaborative zones at ends of the building and the lobby. This building also has event spaces with the large presentation event area and the 2-story lobby.

This is a high performing building with several sustainable strategies such as the reuse of existing building foundations, electrochromic glazing, greywater reuse, tubular daylighting, photovoltaic panels on the roofs, and mass timber. The building’s mass timber structure consists of glue laminated (glulam) beam and columns, and cross laminated timber (CLT) for floor decks and roof decks. All the wood is black spruce and forest steward council (FSC). This building compared to steel was able to use 75% less embodied carbon by using mass timber as its structure.

Design: Kirksey Architecture
Photography: Joe Aker