A historic community center was brought into the 21st century with a metal makeover. An ornamental perforated screen, structural steel platform, photovoltaic panels and other metal building products were used to renovate and expand a former YMCA in southern Los Angeles into the 28th Street Apartments, a supportive service affordable housing facility for young people, people with mental illness and formerly homeless people. The center, completed in January 2013, offers on-site counseling, recreational space including a gym, and community programs.
The YMCA building, which opened in 1926, was designed by the noteworthy African American architect
Paul Revere Williams, and provided lodging and support for young black men in a segregated world. Brian Lane, AIA, LEED AP, principal in charge of the project at Santa Monica, Calif.-based Koning Eizenberg Architecture, says its goal was to contrast and be complementary to the original building. Metal was a contrasting element to the precast concrete building, he says.
“That building had a fluidity and kind of a concrete, solid nature to it,” Lane says. “And we wanted to use metal to differentiate and provide a lightweight contrast, but yet be very complementary to, the old building so that when these two are put together they would look better together than apart.”
Lane says the perforated screen connects the historic building with the new structure. The building designed by Williams has cast stone reliefs with ornate, curling details in multiple locations including between windows near the roof. “When we started looking at how to perforate that metal, and what we could do with that metal panel for patterning, we took that pattern off the old relief on the cast stone,” Lane says.
They took an unconventional approach to die-cutting the lozenge-shaped perforations, Lane says.
“Instead of punching all the way through on some of them, we only punched partially, and we left it so you could tab it, and you could bend an angle into the tab. We called it the hanging chad, like if your ballot had a hanging chad still sticking out.”
This gave the panels dimension, thickness and the ability to catch light and appear different throughout the day, Lane says. “The panel had dimension because you had this bent piece that was sticking out 37 degrees, and that bent piece catches the light in a different way than just a flat panel.”
Aragon Construction Inc., Montclair, Calif., installed 2,734 square feet of Los Angeles-based CRL-U.S. Aluminum’s Series DPS200C Deluxe Perforated Panel System with aluminum substructure framing.
Additionally, Aragon Construction installed approximately 216 square feet of vertical sunshade systems from CRL-U.S. Aluminum on the LEED Gold-certified building.
28th Street Apartments, Los Angeles
Completed: January 2013
Total square footage: 33,680 square feet
Owner: Clifford Beers Housing, Los Angeles, www.cbeershousing.org
Architect/landscape architect: Koning Eizenberg Architecture, Santa Monica, Calif., www.kearch.com
General contractor: Alpha Construction Co. Inc., Van Nuys, Calif., www.alphaconstruction.com
Construction manager: AMJ Construction, Los Angeles, www.amjcm.com
Metal panels: Tinco Sheet Metal, Los Angeles,
www.tincosheetmetal.com
Moisture barrier: Fortifiber Building Systems Group, Fernley, Nev., www.fortifiber.com
Perforated panels/vertical sunshade systems: CRL-U.S. Aluminum, Los Angeles, www.crlaurence.com
Photovoltaic system: Sunpower Corp., San Jose, Calif., www.us.sunpower.com
Solar hot water system: Sun Earth Inc., Fontana, Calif., www.sunearthinc.com
Storefront: Arcadia Inc., Vernon, Calif., www.arcadiainc.com
Structural steel: Dragon Steel Inc., Sun Valley, Calif., www.dragonsteelinc.com
Window grills: Dragon Steel Inc., and The Patrician Group, Riverside, Calif., www.patriciangroup.com