OMA breaks ground on Houston music charter inside 1930s coffee plant

OMA has begun construction on the Frank Liu Jr Academy for Music and Arts (FLAMA), a charter school that will occupy part of Houston's 1930s JA Folger & Co coffee plant — a 250,000-square-foot complex along the Buffalo Bayou East corridor in the city's second ward.

The three-storey institution will open in 2027. The Folger structure, built some four decades before OMA's 1975 founding, contains multiple warehouse buildings.

The school will serve pre-kindergarten through eighth grade as an open-enrollment, tuition-free public charter school. It follows Montessori learning principles, with learning spaces ascending in age from the ground floor upward. The academy forms part of a broader Folger redevelopment that will include apartments, retail, and additional commercial space.

Where do instrument forms appear?

Rather than apply finishes, OMA has drawn musical motifs directly into the building's permanent structure. The references sit in circulation, dining, and library zones. Specific motifs include:

• A curved main stair recalls the form of a French horn.
• A double-height cafetorium will feature a large circular opening informed by the round body of a banjo.
• An F-shaped opening will connect two library commons, referencing both the forte musical symbol and the f-hole of a string instrument.

"Like fine-tuning an instrument, our design recalibrates the existing industrial structure into an open, connected, and expressive environment for learning," OMA partner Jason Long said.

Long added: "FLAMA will be a new learning environment that builds on the character of the existing building while giving it a new life for the community."

How is the program arranged vertically?

Each of the three floors will contain two central gathering spaces. Classrooms, practice rooms, and academic programs will be organised around these hubs to create "neighbourhoods" of learning, per the studio.

The vertical stacking from primary to adolescent learners echoes a Montessori tradition of grouping ages by developmental phase. Montirossi's principles of "prioritising openness, independence, and collective learning" guided the scheme, according to OMA. Renderings show expansive, colourful interiors and a roof terrace capped by a large yellow roof.

Who is delivering the project?

Local developer Lovett Commercial is the project's development partner. The two firms previously collaborated on POST Houston, the adaptive reuse of a former warehouse that opened in 2021.

Renderings are credited to Out of RAM.

What changes for practitioners?

For architects working on adaptive reuse of large industrial footprints, FLAMA offers a working case study in how ornament can derive directly from program rather than applied decoration. For charter school developers in Texas, the Lovett partnership confirms OMA's continued appetite for educational commissions delivered through 2027.

The Houston project follows OMA's August completion of 730 Stanyan, an affordable housing development in San Francisco. OMA co-founder Elia Zenghelis died on September 1 at age 89. The academy is now under construction.