OMA Begins Conversion of Houston's Folger Coffee Plant into Free Arts School

Construction has started on a 6,050 m² public charter school inside a 1930s coffee plant in Houston, with OMA converting the former J. A. Folger & Co. facility into the tuition-free Frank Liu Jr. Academy for Music and Arts (FLAMA). The school, designed by OMA partner Jason Long with RDLR Architects as architect of record and SWA Group handling landscape, opens in August 2027.

The building sits on Houston's Buffalo Bayou East corridor, directly across from Turkey Bend — a waterfront reimagined by Reed Hilderbrand with NADAAA and Rogers Partners as public spaces and flood-adapted landscapes. FLAMA anchors a wider regeneration of the post-industrial corridor.

The plant is a big shell for a small clientele: FLAMA will serve pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students on open enrollment, at no tuition.

What does the adaptive reuse keep?

Visitors enter through a private courtyard and meet a child-oriented transformation of the historic industrial facade. The original muntin windows stay and will be restored to meet contemporary energy standards for schools — heritage fabric retained, performance upgraded.

Daylight drove the plan. Classrooms all sit along the perimeter, where the restored windows supply natural light. Central common areas receive light from newly cut circular skylights. Each floor anchors itself on two gathering areas the design team calls "cymbals," around which classrooms and programs arrange themselves.

At the core, a double-height cafetorium gathers the full student body for daily lunches, assemblies and performances. A large circular opening and a curved auditorium stair define the room, which recalls the body of a banjo.

How do the floors follow the students?

The factory restructures into three learning levels that track students' growth, youngest at the base. Ground-floor pre-kindergarten students share a common area built for breakout play, movement and drum circles — the Montessori emphasis on gross motor development and everyday gathering. Nearby, first and second grades gather around an open space organized around a figural stair whose curve recalls a French horn, supporting informal congregation and early performances.

Upper floors turn quieter. Third through fifth grades share an open library with flexible furniture that shifts between group study, project work and after-school activities. Sixth through eighth grades occupy a second library commons above, with more concentrated study areas. The design team connected the two libraries through an f-shaped floor opening — the f-hole of a string instrument.

The interior program draws on Montessori principles throughout, prioritizing openness, independence and collective learning through a series of shared "neighborhoods."

Where does FLAMA sit in the wider reuse wave?

FLAMA joins a growing roster of industrial-heritage conversions. In New York, London and Brussels, city governments are turning former factories and warehouses into circular construction hubs that support the reuse of construction materials. The African Futures Institute has completed its Accra headquarters in a former tile warehouse in Ghana's Osu neighborhood, now a center for architectural education, research, exhibitions and public programs. In Marfa, Texas, the Chinati Foundation plans to restore the Artillery Sheds — former military buildings adapted by artist Donald Judd to house his 100 untitled works in mill aluminum.

For practitioners, FLAMA offers a test case in how a daylight-poor industrial shell can host an energy-code-compliant school without erasing its fabric. When the first students arrive in August 2027, the perimeter-classroom, skylit-core diagram will face its real users.