'Fabrication Hall' introduces Wyoming high school students to career paths

For juniors and seniors of the Natrona County School System in Casper, Wyo., the Pathways Innovation Center, a newly built high school, offers a 38-acre campus comprising four academies focused on multiple disciplines to help students explore possible career paths. The beating heart of the Pathways Innovation Center is Fabrication Hall, a 5,000-sf common space flanked on all sides by technology-focused labs. The two-story hall was inspired by private sector facilities, such as Boeing’s complex in Washington state, that house their engineering and design teams under one roof.

The hall offers bountiful natural light with enough space to build large-scale projects. Included in the hall are 16-foot-high, custom-fabricated glass bay doors that fully open to the outside. In order to inspire collaboration, the hall, and the activities taking place within it, can be viewed from surrounding glass-walled design spaces. A “floating blue box” is used for informal learning and overlooks the hall.

By having a common space for a variety of disciplines—construction, woodworking, metals, welding, robotics, arts, furniture making—students learn cross-collaboration.

“It’s an incubator for prototyping,” says Scott Krenner, Design Lead, Education, with Cuningham Group, which designed the school in conjunction with MOA Architecture. Also on the team: Martin/Martin (SE), Engineering Design Associates (MEP), Civil Engineering Professionals (CE), D.L. Adams (acoustics), and Groathouse Construction (GC).

Photo courtesy of Cuningham Group.

Photo courtesy of Cuningham Group.