Maier Hall

Port Angeles, WA, United States

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Maier Hall

Port Angeles, WA, United States

Firm

Schacht Aslani Architects

Type

Cultural › Hall/Theater Cultural Center
Educational › University

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2011

SIZE

25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

Maier Hall is a 69,650 sf multi-disciplinary center for fine arts, music, humanities, and instructional support programs located at Peninsula College in Port Angeles, Washington. The building provides state-of-the-art instructional space for a wide range of educational programs. It houses the College's Learning Center, provides general purpose classrooms for Math and English and includes studios for Music and the Fine Arts. A 134-seat performance hall is the focal point of the building and serves as a multi-purpose classroom. It can be acoustically tuned for music performance, lecture and film. Designed to create a place for students and faculty to engage in the College's academic community, the new facility serves the College's mission of becoming a regional center for continuing and higher education.

The building is sited to connect the community spaces on campus to the surrounding natural environment, while minimizing impacts to sensitive adjacent ecosystems. The site borders virgin forests, wetlands and an ecologically-sensitive ravine. The building form wraps around a first-growth grove of tree and serves as an edge to the existing campus and as a gateway to the wetlands and woodlands beyond. An open-air breezeway allows students to pass through the building from the campus to the forest and leads them to a viewing platform at the wetland edge.

The building is designed for sustainability. All new plantings are native species requiring no permanent irrigation system. Rainwater is collected and directed to the adjacent wetland, which is lacking water due to the campus' original stormwater system. An epiphytic roof of native mosses reduces heat island effect, while exterior sun screens reduce glare and unwanted solar heat gain. Heating is provided by a geothermal well field and ground-source heat pumps.

The building features extensive use of natural light, natural ventilation and natural cooling through the use of operable windows. These features bring students into direct contact with the unique environment of the campus and reinforce the College's commitment to sustainability and its expanding programmatic emphasis on environmental issues. The project is designed to exceed the 2011 target of the Architecture 2030 Building Challenge for reducing energy use intensities, greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels.

The project has been LEED Gold certified.