Architecture studio OMA has broken ground on the Frank Liu Jr Academy for Music and Arts charter school in Houston, a pre-K through eighth-grade institution housed in a former coffee plant.

The three-storey Frank Liu Jr Academy for Music and Arts (FLAMA) building will be organised around Montessori learning principles, according to the team, and will integrate instrument forms into spaces, such as a curved stair that "recalls the form of a French horn".

Located along the Buffalo Bayou East corridor in Houston's second ward, FLAMA will be housed within the city's historic 1930s JA Folger & Co coffee plant, a 250,000-square-foot complex that contains multiple warehouse buildings.

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

"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."

According to the studio, learning spaces will ascend in age from the bottom to top floors. Each floor will contain two central spaces for gathering, with classrooms, practice rooms, and academic programs organised around them to create "neighbourhoods" of learning.

Beyond the expansive main stair, the form of instruments will also be integrated into spaces such as the double-height cafetorium, which will feature a large circular opening informed by the round body of a banjo.

An F-shaped opening will also connect two library commons, calling to the forte symbol and the f-hole of a string instrument.

Montirossi's principles of "prioritising openness, independence, and collective learning" shaped much of the design strategy, according to the team, and the renderings show expansive, colourful spaces throughout, including a roof terrace with an enormous yellow roof.

According to local reports, commercial, retail and apartment buildings are also slated to be located at the former coffee plant, which is being developed by local firm Lovett Commercial.

FLAMA is expected to open in 2027 and will be an open-enrollment, tuition-free public charter school.

OMA recently completed an affordable housing development in San Francisco, while OMA co-founder Elia Zenghelis passed away aged 89 earlier this month.

Previously, Lovett Commercial and OMA worked together on POST Houston.

The images are by Out of RAM