Homeland Security Education Center

Glen Ellyn, Illinois / United States of America

The 66,000-square-foot Homeland Security Education Center is the gateway to the western edge of a suburban campus. The college desired a highly functional facility that would, nevertheless, pique curiosity. The solution is a singular, colorful strongbox accentuated by a series of unpredictable episodes including crenellated walls, cages, and dense planting. Thus, a glass and steel grid event space and an auditorium of folding metal walls address a busy intersection. Along the north, an undulating glass wall organizes student gathering zones, exhibits, display cases, and offices beside a winding outdoor path. A cost-effective metal panel grid in three tones of blue merges the technological and the natural, relating to the suburban surroundings and to the existing industrial quality of the campus. The Interior Immersive Training Lab enables simulation of urban response situations. With its brick and stucco walls, canopies, and streetlights, this space evokes a typical Main Street. It, too, comes as a surprise within the metal box. The highly insulated, recycled metal panels and other high-performance systems decrease the LEED certified center’s energy use by 23 percent when compared with a standard building of similar size.