Integrated Manufacturing Facility

Professor Mike Jacobs & Bruce Swetnam | Collaboration with Emily Wolfe

University of Kentucky | Fall 2019

Jefferson Community College is participating in a Kentucky initiative to produced ore Integrated Manufacturing facilities. The school will be preparing students for work in the plant floor setting. The design for the school elevated the plant floor labs, allowing passersby on the adjacent interstate to view the activity inside as well as set a “stage” for the work that is taking place. Concreate forms elevate the glass box that holds the manufacturing floor. The box, rigid in appearance yet flexibile in program due to the large, open, column-free space enabled by a steel structure. The concreate form, flowing and flexible in appearance, is rigid in both program and structure. Supporting spaces are held within the concrete form, which is secured using post-tension cables, thereby attributing to the anti-flexible identity. The form serves as a destination at the end of a long campus axis. The glass box lifts up to welcome pedestrians to an outdoor amphitheater underneath. By lifting the box, the building has a small footprint on the site which allows for adequate space for a geothermal well field below.