A small-arms range building for the local 172nd Air Lift Wing of the Air National Guard provides a durable, enigmatic home for this new training facility. The facility combines a state-of-the-art 14-lane firing range with supporting classroom and training areas.
The building is Designed to meet LEED Gold criteria. The durable envelope includes a vented standing-seam metal roof and brick baffled rain screen that sheds heat gain, wrapped around the building’s interior ballistic-rated tilt-up concrete shell.
The masonry work is crafted from dark, iridescent brick to optically transform the building’s presence depending on the season, weather, and one’s approach. Two long, solid walls on the east and west (where the range function restricts the use of windows) incorporate pilasters that cast deep shadows on the face of the building. The series of pilasters transition from wider to increasingly narrower spacing toward the shorter end of the building’s long low-sloping sides and horizontal brick insets are placed at increasing increments as they move up the wall. The articulation of the building is a study of perceptual stability. The movement and pace change of the brickwork challenges the perceptual resolution of the dimensions of the building. Through an effect of making the building seem larger – longer and taller – from one viewpoint, while from another view the building may seem shorter and flatter.
Duvall Decker was assisted by Waggoner Engineering, Scott Woods and Associates, PA, Top Belle Building Services, LLC, Spencer-Engineers, Inc, Burns Cooley Dennis, LLC, and Jon D Rice & Associates, LLC.
