Louvers and daylighting help create a campus icon
Dark. Dreary. Damp. The place where investigative journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein met with their mysterious informant “Deep Throat” during the Nixon administration. These are descriptions of parking garages, but thanks to a very innovative design, not the new one at the University of California, Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, Calif. Judges parked their praise on it saying, “it takes a mundane program and turns it into something interesting” and “a pretty amazing façade concept.”
With 1,200 stalls over seven levels, it’s a precast concrete hybrid with post-tensioned concrete decks. A single-space car detection system indicates available stalls on each level and the structure’s energy use is offset by photovoltaic panels on the roof. With a challenging site in a very prominent location, the new parking structure has quickly become an icon representing the campus.
 |
|
Working closely with the campus architect, the design team resolved numerous challenges in site circulation, access and privacy. Privacy, in particular, was of great importance because the structure is located next to patient rooms.
“We combined the need for screening and privacy, and created a stunning, textured veil,” says principal architect and designer, Jason A. Silva, AIA, LEED AP, Dreyfuss & Blackford Architects, Sacramento. “The nearly 4,000 louvers covering the façade slope at varied angles, casting changing shadows throughout the day that not only reflect the dense tree canopy that Sacramento is so famous for, but also give the appearance of a DNA chart, a nod to the advanced medical research conducted at the university.”
 |
|
The extruded aluminum louvers from Rosemont, Ill.-based SAPA Extrusions are designed to address multiple functional criteria. On the southern elevations (facing the streets), the fins tilt out from the top so they bounce light into each floor level, while reflecting color and light from the street outside. On the elevation facing the hospital, the fins are angled out at the bottom to maintain privacy for the patients in the adjacent hospital towers, while allowing visibility down to the street level.
The space created by the large projection from the face of the building (from 12 inches up to 15 feet offset) allows light to travel down to the lower levels and reflect back into the garage. The pre-finished aluminum louvers are white with a high reflectance value to maximize reflectance of daylight to the interior. Pre-finished extruded aluminum met the project’s high quality standards, tight dimensional tolerance, final finish appearance demands and economical considerations.
 |
|
“Our goal as a design element was to create a simple, unified form that obscures the parking structure while focusing on something you can’t define,” says Silva. “Metal was important because it allowed us to affect this large projected curved surface away from the parking structure. The structure moves as you move past it; as light bounces off of it. The beauty behind it is the sun bounces off it and it twinkles all over the place. It’s an active thing.”
[sidebar]
UC Davis Medical Center Parking Structure III, Sacramento,Calif.
Completed: July 2012
Total square footage: 423,000 square feet
Building owner: UC Davis Health System
Design architect: Dreyfuss & Blackford Architects, Sacramento,
www.dreyfussblackford.com
Design-build architect/structural engineer: Watry Design Inc., San Jose, Calif., www.watrydesign.com
General contractor: McCarthy Building Cos., Sacramento, www.mccarthy.com
Metal installer: RankerAMG, Sacramento, rankeramg.com
Louvers: Sapa Extrusions, Rosemont, Ill., www.sapagroup.com