Challenge:
Establish flexibility throughout the school’s numerous classrooms and shared spaces to provide both teachers and students the opportunity to engage in collaborative instruction and learning.
Solution:
41 Amarr® 3552 2" Aluminum Full-View Doors ranging in size from 9'6" wide x 10' high to 14'10" wide x 14' high with both 2" and 3" high lift and 3" vertical lift track sets, duplex springs (rated for 100,000 cycles), ClearView aluminum strut system, clear anodized aluminum finish and 1/2" ThermaPro Low-E clear tempered glass in the doors’ upper sections and obscure tempered glass in the doors’ bottom three sections.
Results:
Increased flexibility of indoor teaching environments, with indoor stations connected to outdoor learning spaces via Amarr's doors that provide for enhanced collaboration between the school’s career and technical education (CTE) as well as its general education programs.
Application:
Northeast Career & Technical Academy
Architect:
TSK Architects – Henderson, NV
Environment:
K-12 Education
Location:
North Las Vegas, NV (Clark County School District)
Northeast Career & Technical Academy – North Las Vegas, NV
When Nevada’s Clark County School District decided to pursue one of its newest projects – constructing the Northeast Career & Technical Academy (Northeast Tech) – the bold and innovative vision that the district is well-known for quickly became an integral component of the school’s design process.
The Clark County School District is the fifth largest such district in the U.S. with nearly 300,000 students currently enrolled, educates approximately 64 percent of Nevada’s K-12 students, and is Nevada’s largest employer.
Completed in 2023 and just under 260,000 square feet in size, Northeast Tech is comprised of four program-specific buildings arranged to form a protected courtyard (Garden of Learning) with the Commons (Library “Center of Knowledge”) as the campus’ centerpiece.
This unique building arrangement, which includes a modified courtyard design, provides opportunities to connect indoor teaching stations to outdoor learning spaces and extend the flexibility of the classrooms. This approach also helps to enhance the collaboration between Northeast Tech’s career and technical education (CTE) and general education programs.
Part of a growing trend
To fulfill this plan, 41 Amarr 3552 2" Aluminum Full-View Doors — ranging in size from 9'6" wide x 10' high to as large as 14'10" wide x 14' high — were incorporated into various classrooms, science labs, as well as the school’s dining area.
Led by their Henderson, Nev. office, TSK Architects managed Northeast Tech’s design and spec’d the school's Amarr full-view doors while Crawford Door Sales of Nevada handled the door installations.
The doors all feature key switches (for school staff use only) that in turn activate jackshaft door operators. The Amarr doors also feature duplex springs rated for 100,000 cycles based on the level of projected use.
According to TSK Architect’s Senior Designer Chris Lujan, AIA, LEED GA, “The school’s design approach with Amarr’s full-view sectional doors is a reflection of a trend that has really started to gain traction in the Clark County School District.”
Lujan further explained that he fully expects the concept of using full-view sectional doors in schools will continue to grow as flexible learning environments become more popular for existing school retrofits as well as new school construction.
“In years past, a school might have one or two sectional doors like this, but that’s now grown to involving dozens of such doors in any one location,” Lujan commented. “That’s also a great reflection on a company like Amarr that can scale in terms of the number of doors involved and do it successfully.”
Drawing inspiration from Southwest architecture
Mark Johnson, FAIA, Architectural Sales Manager, Amarr, added that “Northeast Tech’s courtyard design has a Southwest architectureinspired feel with key Amarr full-view door placements that open up from interior to exterior spaces including, for example, the two full-view doors that provide access to the school’s outdoor Children’s Garden recreational area. The doors also help increase the amount of light penetration from both the school’s interior lighting and the natural, outside sunlight depending on where they’re located.”
“Northeast Tech’s courtyard design has a
Southwest architecture-inspired feel with
key Amarr full-view door placements that
open up from interior to exterior spaces...”
Mark Johnson, FAIA,
Architectural Sales Manager, Amarr
Since 1960, TSK Architects has built a solid relationship and worked with the Clark County School District on a variety of projects. Lujan said that the district also likes the firm's expertise in higher education since one of Northeast Tech's missions is to catapult students to that level and direct track fields of study for local workforce development.
TSK Architects’ initial request from the district in 2020 during Northeast Tech’s early planning “Northeast Tech’s courtyard design has a Southwest architecture-inspired feel with key Amarr full-view door placements that open up from interior to exterior spaces...” Mark Johnson, FAIA, Architectural Sales Manager, Amarr 3 stages was to incorporate a few doors with a “garage door” type of character and feel. The district’s general goal for the concept was for the Amarr doors to provide added flexibility and a wider range of both teaching and learning settings.
“The district wanted to connect classroom interiors with more common, central space corridors to provide teachers collaboration zones and break-out areas,” Lujan pointed out. “We were already familiar with Amarr’s products from past elementary school projects and knew that Amarr could deliver in terms of managing security needs, our acoustical requirements, and provide plenty of durability from an equipment perspective.”
Fully understanding the vision
From the start, Lujan added, “TSK Architects firmly understood the school district’s vision, but wanted to create something more refined for them.” Lujan recalled that the Clark County School District’s representative teachers and staff, on behalf of all future teachers as well, were heavily involved early on with the school’s design and planning process. They examined other schools that TSK Architects worked on using similar approaches with glass sectional doors.
Teachers and staff began thinking beyond just using the doors in the library, a lab, or dining areas to provide courtyard access, all while pushing their wish list to other instructional areas. “TSK Architects noticed that their excitement level increased when we confirmed that their wishes were achievable and that we could make them a reality,” Lujan emphasized.
He further shared that Northeast Tech ended up with a nice balance of who needed the Amarr doors and who didn’t. “In a computer lab, for example, students are focused on a certain fixed configuration as are other learning environments that are better suited to a more focused zone. Conversely, other learning environments require a more open, autonomous, flexible, and collaborative space.”
Dr. Ryan Cordia, Principal, Northeast Tech, remarked, “We love our Amarr full-view doors which create opportunities for collaboration between our students and staff across campus. The doors allow easy access for our staff to share their expertise with all students and for learning to occur in each unique area of campus.”
“We love our Amarr full-view sectional
doors which create opportunities for
collaboration between our students
and staff across campus.”
Dr. Ryan Cordia, Principal,
Northeast Career & Technical Academy
Doors that cleanly disappear
Because student attention spans are well known for wandering, TSK Architects opted to use Amarr’s obscured tempered glass on each of the doors’ bottom three sections at seat height to minimize distractions while the doors’ upper sections are clear glass. This allows teachers to maintain visual contact beyond the doors to monitor what’s happening outside their classrooms.
Aside from two of the largest Amarr full-view doors in the school’s dining area, suspended ceiling grid systems cleanly conceal the remaining 39 doors when they’re fully elevated in the ceiling plenum.
“From a design standpoint, we were excited about the opportunity to make the doors virtually disappear when they’re raised,” Lujan said. “With the Clark County School District fully appreciating our research on all that went into incorporating the Amarr doors into Northeast Tech’s design, we were also given the flexibility to design fairly large door openings that allow teachers the option to use their rooms in a variety of ways.”
Perhaps Northeast Tech’s most unique application for the Amarr full-view doors is in the school’s dining area.
Two side-by-side 14'10" x 14' doors with seven sections mounted on high lift tracks are designed to bend away from the dining area wall when fully elevated. This allows the doors to clear four large rectangular green and tealcolored acoustic wall hangings mounted between the tracks. When the doors are fully elevated, the acoustic wall hangings are still visible through the glass sections.
In 2020, when TSK Architects was awarded the Northeast Tech project after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the firm faced a series unique challenges with sourcing a variety of building materials due to global supply chain issues. However, the firm didn’t experience any disruptions with Amarr’s doors as it did with other manufacturers’ products.
“The school’s door specifics all come down to quality and how that’s projected and consistently carried throughout a school’s overall design to produce a clean aesthetic look,” said Lujan. “That even includes the ceilings from a noise mitigation standpoint when the doors are in operation.”
“Amarr essentially heard what we needed
and worked hard to make it all happen.”
Chris Lujan, AIA, LEED GA , Senior Designer
TSK Architects
Lujan shared that TSK Architects experienced a solid performance from Amarr during the submittal and shop drawing process and that the company was highly responsive to his firm’s unique considerations.
“Amarr’s commitment to effective communication, reliable interaction with the general contractor, and connections with various hardware groups were all very much appreciated,” Lujan summarized. “Amarr essentially heard what we needed and worked hard to make it all happen.”
TSK Architects appreciated as well Amarr’s having a long-term, consistently solid team in place both locally and regionally which will be of great help with future school projects.
Architect Resources Available
For details on the 3552 Aluminum Full View Doors, visit Amarr Aluminum Sectional Doors. To explore more about available Lift Options, including Standard Lifts, visit Amarr Lift Options for Commercial Garage Doors.
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Visit Amarr Architect Resources to learn more or contact us at 800-503-DOOR (3667).