Text description provided by the architects. A new state-of-the-art high school designed by Cuningham Group Architecture, Inc. (Cuningham Group ®) is providing students with an interactive and personalized learning experience and exposure to future career opportunities. Pathways Innovation Center offers junior and seniors in the Natrona County School System in Casper, Wyoming, an interactive and personalized education through four academies focused on multiple disciplines, including engineering and design.
“The goal is to inspire kids who are not necessarily planning to move on to four-year colleges,” says Scott Krenner, the project’s Design Lead and Associate at Cuningham Group. “Rather than follow a traditional vocational approach, this high school presents new pathways to success; a way to shine that may not be found in standardized tests. Here, their inventive thinking and new skills are much more visible.”
Cuningham Group worked with a local partner, MOA Architecture, to design a 38-acre campus, which also includes the new Roosevelt High School. The Pathways program is open to all juniors and seniors in the school district.
At the center of Pathways Innovation Center is “Fabrication Hall,” a 5,000-square-foot, two-story common space surrounded by labs equipped with cutting-edge technology, and is meant to encourage teams from all academies to collaborate on projects. The architects’ innovative design concept for Fabrication Hall was inspired by private sector facilities, including Boeing in Washington state, where engineering and design teams work under one roof.
“This is a unique space that you don’t see at other schools,” Krenner says. “It is fully sun-filled and large enough to build homes and solar-powered airplanes.” The hall has 16-feet-high, custom-fabricated glass bay doors that fully open to the outside. On the inside, the hall is viewed from glass-walled design spaces, including a “floating blue box” overlooking the hall for informal learning.
“This approach creates a conversation between academic disciplines, including construction, woodworking, metals, welding, robotics, arts and furniture making,” he says. “It’s an incubator for prototyping. Ideas are generated and then connect with the different academies at the school. As the Fabrication Hall, the transparent design stimulates synergy and is a celebration of student achievement.”
