Washington University
Two Buildings Added to Sam Fox Arts Center
by Steve Kaelble A $30 million project
at Washington University in St. Louis is adding to the Sam Fox Arts Center at
the southeast corner of the university's Hilltop Campus.
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Construction manager McCarthy Building Cos. Inc. of St. Louis
is building an art museum and a School of Art studio facility, which together
with three existing buildings will form the comprehensive arts complex at Skinker
and Forsyth boulevards near the university's main campus entrance.
The
arts complex will bring together the university's five visual-arts and design
programs - the School of Art, School of Architecture, Gallery of Art, Art &
Architecture Library and Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts &
Sciences - and bring some currently offsite programs back onto campus.
"The
project consists of two separate buildings," said Adam Knoebel, project manager
for McCarthy. "One is a 67,230-sq.-ft. art gallery building that includes
various galleries, support spaces, art storage and sculpture storage, a central
utility plant for the project and faculty and administrative offices."
The
building, which will also include classrooms for the Department of Art History
& Archaeology, will have one level below grade and two above ground.
"The
other building consists of studios and work spaces for the School of Art,"
Knoebel said. Among other things, the facility will house graduate art studios,
along with studios for ceramics, sculpture, painting and metalworking. The building,
to be known as Earl E. and Myrtle E. Walker Hall, will encompass 33,540 sq. ft.
California, Missouri and Japan The project represented a homecoming of sorts
for its architects.
The Oakland, Calif., firm of Shah Kawasaki Architects
is the architect of record, while the design architect is Pritzker Prize-winner
Fumihiko Maki. "Mr. Maki was a professor there years ago," said Alan
Kawasaki, co-owner and principal at Shah Kawasaki.
Maki taught in the School
of Architecture in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and his first commission was
one of the existing buildings in the Sam Fox Arts Center: the 1960-era Steinberg
Hall.
Kawasaki's business partner, Harish Shah, is a Washington University
graduate, and the California firm has partnered with Maki in the past.
Kawasaki
said the pairing also made sense given the fact that Shah Kawasaki had already
worked with the university on a master plan that, among other things, included
renovation work at the three existing pieces of the Sam Fox Arts Center: Bixby,
Givens and Steinberg halls. The Bixby and Givens work has already been completed,
and Steinberg is slated for renovation once the two new buildings are finished.
"Mr.
Maki developed the schematic design for the project," Kawasaki said. "He
did it in Japan. As Maki submitted design drawings, Shah Kawasaki would determine
how to make them work on the Washington University campus.
"We had
to make it so that with American technology we could achieve what Mr. Maki wanted,"
Kawasaki added. "We produced the construction drawings here."
A Historical Site Washington University's Hilltop Campus has an interesting
history that played a role in the new buildings' design, Kawasaki said.
It
was part of the site of the 1904 World's Fair, and the fair's administration building
is now the university's Brookings Hall, just across a parking lot from the construction
site. The new buildings incorporate the same Indiana limestone used in other nearby
campus buildings, but "the upper campus has a Gothic feel, and these are
more contemporary buildings," Kawasaki said.
The exterior skin is
a precast base with limestone and metal panel skin. "Both buildings have
concrete foundations with structural-steel frames," Knoebel said. "The
gallery building has six large skylights, the art annex includes a large skylight
and both incorporate curtain-wall systems into various aspects of the exterior.
They are connected by a central courtyard between the two buildings, but physically
they are not connected."
They also are not physically connected with
the three existing buildings in the arts complex.
The interior varies between
the two new buildings. For the art museum, "there's typically a high level
of quality desired because of what it is," with drywall walls and floor finishes
that include hardwoods, Knoebel said. "The interior atrium of the building
includes a limestone stairway with a glass handrail."
The art studio
building has a much different feel, more akin to the kinds of creative spaces
that attract artists to lofts and former industrial buildings. "It's typically
an exposed-structure type of interior," Knoebel added.
Among other
things, the studio spaces include exposed steel, ductwork and piping and floors
that are often concrete.
Adding complexity to the museum building's design
was the fact that it will be housing works of art, Kawasaki said.
"The
preservation of the art requires a stable temperature and humidity," he added.
"In order to maintain that, you have to add humidity or subtract humidity,
as necessary.
"The building envelope has to be tight in order not
to leak temperature and humidity.
There's a membrane vapor barrier that
completely buttons up the building, more than you would normally have. It's going
along all the walls and across the under-side of the roof." Avoiding
Disruptions The compact nature of the project site and the university's desire
to keep campus disruptions to a minimum added to the job's complexity.
"It
is a very tight project site," Knoebel said. "The reason is that Washington
University has some ongoing parking concerns and this is being constructed on
one of the previous parking areas."
Add to that the fact that the
project occupies a prominent location on the campus, near the signature Brookings
Hall, which often appears on university brochures. "We are really right on
the front porch of Washington University, which means that there's a desire to
maintain a respectable image," Knoebel said.
"That results in
nothing outside of the fences, ongoing street cleaning and site restoration whenever
we affect something outside our fence. Staging outside is kept to a minimum.
"The
entire project duration is more of a just-in-time delivery because of the minimal
staging area onsite. A lot of subcontractors are storing materials offsite and
bringing them in when they need them."
When possible, McCarthy has
tried to conduct more disruptive activities in summer months, when fewer students
are on-campus.
"There are things that are easier to do when school
is not in session, such as any work outside our construction area," Knoebel
said. "We have some site utility work we're doing and completing prior to
the kids coming back to school."
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