Reynolds College of Arts MSU

The Judith Enyeart Reynolds Complex replaces the old Art Annex on Grand Street and gives Missouri State a new front porch on the south edge of campus. Dake Wells designed roughly 24,000 square feet around a black box theatre, a lobby, acting and camera studios, and design labs for technical theatre students, with JE Dunn building it. The signature move is a studio box cantilevered clear of the ground over the forecourt, and the cladding had to carry that gesture without a visible fastener anywhere on it.

Gordon's WinLok exterior wall system is the basis of design for the envelope, hung on concealed WinLok clips over a thermally broken subgirt assembly. The panels are formed from .080 inch aluminum sheet in rounded profiles of 8, 10, and 12 inch radius, mixed with flat panels so the rib rhythm shifts across each elevation and reads differently as the sun moves over it. The soffit under the cantilever is Gordon's WinLok accessible soffit system, which keeps the plane flat and still allows the panels to come down for access.

The finish is a custom three-coat AAMA 2605 coating matched to Lorin's Dark Antique Copper anodic sample, which gives the building the depth of a real copper patina on an aluminum substrate that will not stain the concrete below it, and it carries a 15 year finish warranty. The complex opens in November 2026.