Oklahoma Aviation Academy at Norman Public Schools

Norman, Oklahoma

Manhattan Construction Company is the Construction Manager for the Oklahoma Aviation Academy (OAA), the country’s third facility of its kind. It represents a partnership between the University of Oklahoma’s (OU) School of Aviation and Norman Public Schools to offer a dedicated high school STEAM program focused on aviation design, engineering, maintenance, and flight training.

Located at Max Westheimer Airport, it has direct access to OU’s facilities and the airport itself. The two-story, 99,000-square-foot building is designed to resemble a modern version of the World War II-era hangars that originally stood at Max Westheimer Airport. Programmatically, it functions as a self-contained high school campus, featuring classrooms, labs, a cafeteria, a gymnasium, flight simulators, an auditorium with retractable seating, a two-story safe room, and a hangar large enough to accommodate two airplanes simultaneously. It also features a building lab called Tango Flight, where students will build their own full-size aircraft and flight simulators for pilot training.

The exterior features a combination of metal panels, fiber cement siding, brick veneer, and glass and glazing, including a glass hangar door. The structure features a combination of structural steel and ICF for its exterior walls. The building is designed to resemble a biplane when viewed from the main entrance, with concrete paving that mimics runway markings. The west half of the building features a barrel vault structure. The vaulted roof was designed to match the original hangars at Max Westheimer Airport, built during World War II.

In addition, this site includes a 9,900-square-foot building to be used by the University of Oklahoma College and Careers for the OU aviation department.

The design team includes Oklahoma City-based MA+ Architects and KFC Engineering.