The new Wilson Secondary School expands and combines two secondary programs to a new building on Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA. Designed by BIG Architects and Leo A. Daly, “the design seeks to maintain the feeling of a 1-story school building while still having a vertical organization and the efficiencies afforded by it.” The building is designed as a series of bars rotated about a single hinge point. The structure’s rotation naturally creates large soffits and usable green space atop each bar. Wrapping these floating bars in heavy brickwork would typically prove challenging, but not for Corium Brick.
CHALLENGE
Accommodating building movement was the greatest challenge. Long, narrow bands of brick over glass curtain wall and large triangular soffits required unique solutions. The design vision was a brick building without typical expansion joints. To hide these we implemented unique zipper-joints creating a visually seamless wall.
“Wilson Secondary School (now known as The Heights) included over 33,000 square feet of Corium glazed brick rainscreen system. Our mechanics found the tray and brick components to be very consistent in manufacture, resulting in consistent installation progress, quality and appearance. We discovered little in the way of damaged material in shipping and unloading, which reflects a very good job in packaging material for travel by sea and trucking. We also collaborated well with the Corium engineering team to address some of the unique challenges of the project geometry, which included development of the support system for a 12-inch face of wall to substrate setback, finish details for skewed intersections between soffits and walls, and concealed deflection joints.”
