Buffalo Promise Neighborhood
An early childhood learning facility required custom design and on-time efficiency. Butler’s systems met the needs of the design and the community.
Project
Overview
In 2010, the U.S. Department of Education awarded its first round of Promise Neighborhoods planning grants to 21 communities across the country to build facilities that would serve communities where childhood poverty and literacy issues exist.
Buffalo Promise Neighborhood (BPN), an organization focusing on a community in the northeastern corner of Buffalo, N.Y., used one of these grants to build BPN Children’s Academy, an early childhood education center serving neighborhood children ages 5 and younger.
The children’s academy represents how engineered precision can advance community transformation.
As the first new facility built in the neighborhood in more than 20 years, the early childhood education center required a design that was efficient, inspiring and built to perform under demanding site and schedule conditions.
Partnering with Butler Manufacturing®, the project team utilized wall panels to deliver one-hour fire protection along the building’s tight property line while maintaining energy efficiency and a refined architectural finish.
The building was completed in just 10 months — providing children and educators with a safe, durable and energy-efficient environment for early learning.
The team built what we wanted and was able to do it in a short amount of time, which enabled us to complete the building and open it in 10 months. Butler definitely met our specifications.
The organization believes visualization affects the psyche and stressed how important it was for people to feel excited when they entered the new facility. Excitement hits visitors immediately thanks to large, playful, colored windows on the street that connect children with the city, while the classrooms have direct views and openings to the play yard, linking children to nature.
To meet functional needs, the building design featured multiple rooms with ample windows used as classrooms and offices for health care needs. The facility also required ample playground space, so the Butler solution included a large outdoor canopy to protect children from the elements. Because of the proximity of the neighboring building, the design included ThermalSafe® wall panels for one-hour fire protection.
Space and timing also were key considerations throughout the building process. The small footprint meant the building site had to be expertly navigated. Unlike many construction sites, there wasn’t excess space available to store materials, so the construction team emphasized the importance of fast-tracking tasks — when materials arrived, they needed to be used immediately. Because Butler products are precision-engineered to fit together, construction moved faster without much material waste. In addition, they were diligent in clearing the snow regularly to lessen weather exposure and optimize space during the harsh Buffalo winter.
