The building provides a campus for College Community School District’s new Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources program. The 6,400 square foot facility on a 155-acre farm site located just north of Prairie High School contains three main elements: a science classroom, a conference room/storm shelter, and a greenhouse. The site also contains various outbuildings original to the farm site.

The need to prepare all learners for the future has led to increased investment in Career and Technical Education (CTE). Iowa, known for corn and soybean production, is also home to many large-scale, commercial food and fuel processing giants like Quaker Oats, Heinz Kraft, Cargill, ADM, General Mills, & Ingredion. Many graduates from CCSD will eventually work for these corridor companies, employing skills acquired at College Community School District’s Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources facility on their newly acquired 155-acre farm site on the south side of Cedar Rapids.

To support AFNR education and programs, the 6,400 square foot building contains three main elements: a science classroom, a ICC-500 storm shelter, and a greenhouse. Sited north of the high school on a former family farm site with its quintessential cluster of barns, bins, sheds, and coops, the design seeks to respond to the remaining structures on site while also relating to the future working environments of the students. This is accomplished via use of forms and materials that are common to both, utilizing a no-nonsense pre-engineered metal shed and a pre-engineered greenhouse with minimal adaptation. To this, straightforward organization of spaces and visual identity elements are added to ensure legibility of arrival, circulation, use, and identity.

The design includes solar panels on roof and operable sun shades on southern windows. The building exceeds energy code minimums for envelope performance, lighting/electrical use, water use, and heating/cooling requirements.