ArchitectureHouston · Under construction
OMA turns a 1930s Houston coffee plant into a music and arts school
The former J.A. Folger & Co. plant becomes FLAMA, a tuition-free charter school whose shared spaces borrow their shapes from instruments.
OMA's New York office is converting Houston's 1930s J.A. Folger & Co. coffee plant into the Frank Liu Jr. Academy for Music and Arts, a tuition-free public charter school built around music and creative learning. Led by partner Jason Long with project architect Salome Nikuradze, the 6,050-square-metre project sits on the Buffalo Bayou East corridor, opposite the future Turkey Bend development.
The idea draws on Montessori teaching. Younger children start on the ground floor and pupils move upwards as they grow, with each level arranged around two open commons the architects call 'cymbals'. Rather than corridors linking closed rooms, these shared spaces carry the play, study and performance.
The music references are lovely and literal. A staircase curves like a French horn, an f-shaped opening links two libraries (nodding to the forte sign, a violin's sound holes and the school's initials) and lets light and sound pass between floors, and the double-height cafetorium, with its turquoise stair and round opening, recalls a banjo.
Daylight was the hard part in a deep industrial shell, so classrooms line the outer walls, circular skylights light the middle, and the original street windows are restored. It is still under construction and is a school rather than a public venue: one for anyone interested in adaptive reuse.
Our summary of a story from designboom, published 12 October 2026. Read the original
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