A Late, Great Addition
by Jonathan McGaha | June 2, 2013 12:00 am
The addition to the Iowa Western Community College Performing Arts Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was 12 years in the making. The original structure, designed by HDR Architecture, Omaha, Neb., included the theater area, black box, flyway, lobby and a few teaching and studio spaces for both visual and performing arts in a separate wing. The plan, according to David Lempke, AIA, LEED AP, vice president and design principal at HDR, was to construct the addition in a couple of years.
In fact, the building was prepared for the addition during construction. The studio area was a one-story wing and crews prepared the concrete roof deck so that it could be used as a floor when the second floor was built. Mechanicals and other systems were set up to make it easier to add on.
But during the intervening years, events occurred. While community colleges have seen strong growth and increased construction, the country suffered a severe economic downturn, and the addition was delayed. When HDR came back to the table, the team realized that plans had changed. During initial meetings, the college had anticipated the addition going toward the east, according the Lempke, and it has been lost in the mix that there actually had been preparation for a western expansion of the building.
The motivation was a combination of the building’s situation on campus and the topography. The performing arts center is to the west of the main campus and sits on a sloping hill that flows north down toward Mosquito Creek and a wooded area. A western extension would open the longest elevation to the north, revealing the wooded area below and “drinking in the northern light,” says Lempke. The plan called for the main building to remain untouched as much as possible. “But the next big question,” Lempke says, “is do we just continue with what we have before?” The original building was clad in a combination of cast-in-place concrete, limestone, glass and galvanized roof decking that was painted. “We could have just simply continued on, but it had been a decade. Times have changed. One of our fundamental design tenets is to design of the time.”
The design team noted that among the more defining characteristics of the campus were a series of metal footbridges that crossed creeks, which had weathered and revealed a nice patina. The campus also featured a very prominent monument sign at the entrance, which was made of metal and showcased a bell tower, also of metal. “Those elements, which are non-building elements, are very tactile and they created a real sense of place,” Lempke says.
Inspired by those elements, the team selected Holland, Mich.-based Dri-Design Weathering Steel wall panels as the defining material of the new addition. The 5,200 square feet of 14-gauge panel dominant forms that jut out from the central core of the addition. They also sandwich the rising, glass form of the stair tower with its angled roof.
The addition is fairly simple in plan. A rectangle, but with the intersecting planes and use of the weathering metal, the addition transforms the original building, which is nearly three times the size of the relatively modest 11,000 square-foot new wing.
Lempke says: “It’s the material that’s distinctive, not the form. We wanted to strike the balance between expression and restraint. Not make the addition scream, but have it still be powerful.”
The bay windows on the northern elevation serve to open up the addition to the northern light-that steady illumination visual artists crave. From the interior, the windows reveal the long, Iowa vista spreading out below the building. In fact, a 10-degree angle in the floor plan of the building serves to open even more of the vista.
The space itself has become a go-to spot for students looking for quiet study areas, as well as informal gathering spaces. At the top of the stair tower is a larger landing area that has become an informal meeting point. And on the exterior of the northern elevation, shaded by the metal walls, are sitting areas for outside use. A deft new addition has complemented and transformed the performing arts center at Iowa Western Community College and the primary driver in the transformation is the material selection of weathered steel.
[All photos Mark Kempf]
Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/articles/a-late-great-addition/