Lone Star College – CyFair Classroom & Student Services Bldg

Lone Star College-CyFair serves the third largest school district in Texas and one of the fastest growing communities in the U.S. The campus has experienced explosive growth since its opening in 2003. The Classroom and Student Services building improved both capacity and capability while serving the needs of a growing population.

The building combines three distinctive structures — a three-story brick building and a one-story curtain wall connected by a two-story glass lobby. Level 1 is dedicated primarily to Student Services including a Welcome Center, Career and Transfer Center, Counseling Department, Assessment Center, Financial Aid, Academic Advising, a Call Center, the Dean’s Suite and a Multi-Purpose Room. The remainder of the building contains classrooms, a lecture hall, computer labs and faculty suites that provide offices and support space.

The Lobby roof slopes downward from a two-story to a one-story height and is an acoustic metal deck. The exposed structural frame and connections are designed and finished to complement the architecture. The roof also extends over a covered walkway at the building’s entrance with a portion of it cantilevered 16 feet.

Two 65-foot, Portuguese stone clad sail walls form a distinguishing feature of the architecture. The architect envisioned five-foot deep walls with no visible support. In order to achieve this effect the sail walls needed to be self-supporting. In response, Walter P Moore designed 60-foot vertical steel trusses every 10 feet mounted on deep pier foundations. These “floating” sail walls achieved the design intent with minimal impact to the overall budget.