It’s no secret that Mission College, located in Santa Clara, CA, experiences gorgeous weather year round. To compliment this, the campus, which is full of socialization spaces, provides an environment that encourages exterior learning and interaction between students and faculty. Working toward a master plan to lessen its eco-footprint, Mission has been incorporating sustainable design values that use state-of-the-art technologies, starting with the construction of the Gillmor Center.

The Gillmor Center is a three-story interdisciplinary classroom facility that houses approximately 50 percent of the school’s classes, including art classrooms for painting, drawing, ceramics and sculpture, and others like a woodshop, metal and jewelry shop and print shop. The center also houses technical education classrooms, faculty offices, meeting spaces, lab and lecture space computer labs and numerous student gathering and study spaces.

Roebbelen Contracting and Lionakis architects were hired to build and design the 112,000-sqare-foot academic building. To achieve the desired energy-efficiency goal, CENTRIA Formawall® Dimension Series® insulated metal panels were selected and finished with Valspar’s Fluropon® Classic II coating in its prestigious Platinum color - offering a sleek aesthetic to the facility’s exterior. Fluropon coatings provide exceptional protection against dirt and stains, and are designed to resist chalking and fading. Additionally, the exterior insulated metal panels offer energy savings to the new academic building through their superior thermal efficiency.

The Center includes an energy management system, green roof, water efficient landscaping, roof-mounted photovoltaic panels and roof-mounted domestic hot water solar panels as part of the larger energy-efficiency building standards.

Reaching completion in April 2014, the Gary G. Gillmor and Family Academic Center officially cut its ribbon on May 1, honoring the legacy created by Gary Gillmor, a historic basketball player for the university. As Gillmor left a lasting impression on campus, the new Center will do the same with its innovative and sustainable features.

By The Valspar Corporation; Minneapolis, MN