Somerset County Technical High School

Somerset County Technical High School

Application: Walls

Building Type: K-12 Education

Becker Morgan Architects designed the new Somerset County Technical High School on the grounds of Somerset County Public Schools Complex. The school is a 103,000 SF facility with approximately 400 students in grades 8 through 12 and includes 3,000 SF designated for cooperative use. To promote collaboration, the building is organized around Career Clusters and is designed to be a teaching tool with exposed structures and systems, enhancing the training and maintenance and the construction trades.

The facility received LEED Gold Certification under the U.S. Green Building Council Leadership, Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system. Green elements include water use reduction, utilizing low-emitting materials, green cleaning, the collection of recyclables, and protection or restoration of habitat.

The school is clad with a black spot iron manganese black masonry wall accented with a natural Wood High Pressure Laminate Wood panel from Parklex. The Parklex Amber color panels exhibit the beauty of a real wood skin pressed on a HPL core for outstanding impact and durability, in a zero maintenance format.

The Parklex Rainscreen Cladding used a concealed clip and rail subframing system. The concealed carrier rail system installed over Eco Cladding VCI.40 bracket and rail frame providing a thermally broken system compliant with the new IBC codes for continuous insulation.

The high-performance school envelope also incorporated the use of closed cell, spray foam insulation, Walltite manufactured by BASF. The closed cell foam provided the maximum in thermal performance, fully bonded to the back-up wall and the most complete plane of thermal continuity achievable. The Walltite SPF also met Green Guard Gold Certification for Schools.

PPSI provided design detailing support for the Parklex Wood Cladding, the Eco Cladding subframing, and the Walltite SPF insulating air barrier assembly.